NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver README and Installation Guide
NVIDIA Corporation
Last Updated: 2010/11/22
Most Recent Driver Version: 173.14.37
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______________________________________________________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Minimum Software Requirements
Chapter 3. Selecting and Downloading the NVIDIA Packages for Your System
Chapter 4. Installing the NVIDIA Driver
Chapter 5. Listing of Installed Components
Chapter 6. Configuring X for the NVIDIA Driver
Chapter 7. Frequently Asked Questions
Chapter 8. Common Problems
Chapter 9. Known Issues
Chapter 10. Allocating DMA Buffers on 64-bit Platforms
Chapter 11. Specifying OpenGL Environment Variable Settings
Chapter 12. Configuring AGP
Chapter 13. Configuring TwinView
Chapter 14. Configuring GLX in Xinerama
Chapter 15. Configuring Multiple X Screens on One Card
Chapter 16. Configuring TV-Out
Chapter 17. Using the XRandR Extension
Chapter 18. Configuring a Notebook
Chapter 19. Programming Modes
Chapter 20. Configuring Flipping and UBB
Chapter 21. Using the Proc Filesystem Interface
Chapter 22. Configuring Power Management Support
Chapter 23. Using the X Composite Extension
Chapter 24. Using the nvidia-settings Utility
Chapter 25. Configuring SLI and Multi-GPU FrameRendering
Chapter 26. Configuring Frame Lock and Genlock
Chapter 27. Configuring SDI Video Output
Chapter 28. Configuring Depth 30 Displays
Chapter 29. NVIDIA Contact Info and Additional Resources
Chapter 30. Acknowledgements
Appendix A. Supported NVIDIA GPU Products
Appendix B. X Config Options
Appendix C. Display Device Names
Appendix D. GLX Support
Appendix E. Dots Per Inch
Appendix F. i2c Bus Support
Appendix G. XvMC Support
Appendix H. Tips for New Linux Users
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 1. Introduction
______________________________________________________________________________
1A. ABOUT THE NVIDIA ACCELERATED LINUX GRAPHICS DRIVER
The NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver brings accelerated 2D
functionality and high-performance OpenGL support to Linux x86 with the use of
NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs).
These drivers provide optimized hardware acceleration for OpenGL and X
applications and support nearly all recent NVIDIA GPU products (see Appendix A
for a complete list of supported GPUs). TwinView, TV-Out and flat panel
displays are also supported.
1B. ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT
This document provides instructions for the installation and use of the NVIDIA
Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver. Chapter 3, Chapter 4 and Chapter 6 walk the
user through the process of downloading, installing and configuring the
driver. Chapter 7 addresses frequently asked questions about the installation
process, and Chapter 8 provides solutions to common problems. The remaining
chapters include details on different features of the NVIDIA Linux Driver.
Frequently asked questions about specific tasks are included in the relevant
chapters. These pages are posted on NVIDIA's web site (http://www.nvidia.com),
and are installed in '/usr/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/'.
1C. ABOUT THE AUDIENCE
It is assumed that the user and reader of this document has at least a basic
understanding of Linux techniques and terminology. However, new Linux users
can refer to Appendix H for details on parts of the installation process.
1D. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
In case additional information is required, Chapter 29 provides contact
information for NVIDIA Linux driver resources, as well as a brief listing of
external resources.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 2. Minimum Software Requirements
______________________________________________________________________________
Software Element Supported versions Check With...
--------------------- --------------------- ---------------------
Linux kernel 2.4.7 and newer `cat /proc/version`
XFree86* 4.0.1 and newer `XFree86 -version`
X.Org* 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, `Xorg -version`
1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7,
1.8, 1.9, 1.10, 1.11,
1.12, 1.13, 1.14
Kernel modutils 2.1.121 and newer `insmod -v`
* It is only required that you have one of XFree86 or X.Org, not both.
Sometimes very recent versions are not supported immediately following
release, but we aim to support all new versions as soon as possible.
If you need to build the NVIDIA kernel module:
Software Element Min Requirement Check With...
--------------------- --------------------- ---------------------
binutils 2.9.5 `size --version`
GNU make 3.77 `make --version`
gcc 2.91.66 `gcc --version`
glibc 2.0 `ls /lib/libc.so.* >
6`
If you build from source RPMs:
Required Software Element Check With...
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
spec-helper rpm `rpm -qi spec-helper`
All official stable kernel releases from 2.4.0 and up are supported;
"prerelease" versions such as "2.4.3-pre2" are not supported, nor are
development series kernels such as 2.3.x or 2.5.x. The Linux kernel can be
downloaded from http://www.kernel.org or one of its mirrors.
binutils and gcc can be retrieved from http://www.gnu.org or one of its
mirrors.
If you are using XFree86, but do not have a file '/var/log/XFree86.0.log',
then you probably have a 3.x version of XFree86 and must upgrade.
If you are setting up XFree86 4.x for the first time, it is often easier to
begin with one of the open source drivers that ships with XFree86 (either
"nv", "vga" or "vesa"). Once XFree86 is operating properly with the open
source driver, you may then switch to the NVIDIA driver.
Note that newer NVIDIA GPUs may not work with older versions of the "nv"
driver shipped with XFree86. For example, the "nv" driver that shipped with
XFree86 version 4.0.1 did not recognize the GeForce2 family and the Quadro2
MXR GPUs. This was fixed in XFree86 version 4.0.2. XFree86 can be retrieved
from http://www.xfree86.org.
These software packages may also be available through your Linux distributor.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 3. Selecting and Downloading the NVIDIA Packages for Your System
______________________________________________________________________________
NVIDIA drivers can be downloaded from the NVIDIA website
(http://www.nvidia.com).
The NVIDIA driver follows a Unified Architecture Model in which a single
graphics driver is used for all supported NVIDIA GPU products (see Appendix A
for a list of supported GPUs). The burden of selecting the correct driver is
removed from the user, and the graphics driver is downloaded as a single file
named
'NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.37-pkg1.run'
The package suffix ('-pkg#') is used to distinguish between packages
containing the same driver, but with different precompiled kernel interfaces.
The file with the highest package number is suitable for most installations.
Support for "legacy" GPUs has been removed from the unified driver. These
legacy GPUs will continue to be maintained through special legacy GPU driver
releases. See Appendix A for a list of legacy GPUs.
The downloaded file is a self-extracting installer, and you may place it
anywhere on your system.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 4. Installing the NVIDIA Driver
______________________________________________________________________________
This chapter provides instructions for installing the NVIDIA driver. Note that
after installation, but prior to using the driver, you must complete the steps
described in Chapter 6. Additional details that may be helpful for the new
Linux user are provided in Appendix H.
4A. BEFORE YOU BEGIN
Before you begin the installation, exit the X server and terminate all OpenGL
applications (note that it is possible that some OpenGL applications persist
even after the X server has stopped). You should also set the default run
level on your system such that it will boot to a VGA console, and not directly
to X. Doing so will make it easier to recover if there is a problem during the
installation process. See Appendix H for details.
4B. STARTING THE INSTALLER
After you have downloaded the file 'NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.37-pkg#.run',
change to the directory containing the downloaded file, and as the 'root' user
run the executable:
# cd yourdirectory
# sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.37-pkg#.run
The '.run' file is a self-extracting archive. When executed, it extracts the
contents of the archive and runs the contained 'nvidia-installer' utility,
which provides an interactive interface to walk you through the installation.
'nvidia-installer' will also install itself to '/usr/bin/nvidia-installer',
which may be used at some later time to uninstall drivers, auto-download
updated drivers, etc. The use of this utility is detailed later in this
chapter.
You may also supply command line options to the '.run' file. Some of the more
common options are listed below.
Common '.run' Options
--info
Print embedded info about the '.run' file and exit.
--check
Check integrity of the archive and exit.
--extract-only
Extract the contents of './NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.37.run', but do not run
'nvidia-installer'.
--help
Print usage information for the common commandline options and exit.
--advanced-options
Print usage information for common command line options as well as the
advanced options, and then exit.
4C. INSTALLING THE KERNEL INTERFACE
The NVIDIA kernel module has a kernel interface layer that must be compiled
specifically for each kernel. NVIDIA distributes the source code to this
kernel interface layer, as well as precompiled versions for many of the
kernels provided by popular Linux distributions.
When the installer is run, it will determine if it has a precompiled kernel
interface for the kernel you are running. If it does not have one, the
installer will check your system for the required kernel sources and compile
the interface for you. You must have the source code for your kernel installed
for compilation to work. On most systems, this means that you will need to
locate and install the correct kernel-source, kernel-headers, or kernel-devel
package; on some distributions, no additional packages are required (e.g.
Fedora Core 3, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4).
After the correct kernel interface has been identified (either included in the
'.run' file or compiled from source code), the kernel interface will be linked
with the closed-source portion of the NVIDIA kernel module. This requires that
you have a linker installed on your system. The linker, usually '/usr/bin/ld',
is part of the binutils package. You must have a linker installed prior to
installing the NVIDIA driver.
4D. FEATURES OF THE INSTALLER
Without options, the '.run' file executes the installer after unpacking it.
The installer can be run as a separate step in the process, or can be run at a
later time to get updates, etc. Some of the more important commandline options
of 'nvidia-installer' are:
'nvidia-installer' options
--uninstall
During installation, the installer will make backups of any conflicting
files and record the installation of new files. The uninstall option
undoes an install, restoring the system to its pre-install state.
--latest
Connect to NVIDIA's FTP site, and report the latest driver version and the
url to the latest driver file.
--update
Connect to NVIDIA's FTP site, download the most recent driver file, and
install it.
--ui=none
The installer uses an ncurses-based user interface if it is able to locate
the correct ncurses library. Otherwise, it will fall back to a simple
commandline user interface. This option disables the use of the ncurses
library.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 5. Listing of Installed Components
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver consists of the following
components (filenames in parenthesis are the full names of the components
after installation; "x.y.z" denotes the current version. In these cases
appropriate symlinks are created during installation):
o An X driver (/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so); this driver
is needed by the X server to use your NVIDIA hardware.
o A GLX extension module for X
(/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.so.x.y.z); this module is used
by the X server to provide server-side GLX support.
o An X module for wrapped software rendering
(/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libnvidia-wfb.so.x.y.z and optionally,
/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libwfb.so); this module is used by the X driver to
perform software rendering on GeForce 8 series GPUs. If libwfb.so already
exists, nvidia-installer will not overwrite it. Otherwise, it will create
a symbolic link from libwfb.so to libnvidia-wfb.so.x.y.z.
o An OpenGL library (/usr/lib/libGL.so.x.y.z); this library provides the
API entry points for all OpenGL and GLX function calls. It is linked to
at run-time by OpenGL applications.
o An OpenGL core library (/usr/lib/libGLcore.so.x.y.z); this library is
implicitly used by libGL and by libglx. It contains the core accelerated
3D functionality. You should not explicitly load it in your X config file
-- that is taken care of by libglx.
o Two XvMC (X-Video Motion Compensation) libraries: a static library and a
shared library (/usr/X11R6/lib/libXvMCNVIDIA.a,
/usr/X11R6/lib/libXvMCNVIDIA.so.x.y.z); see Appendix G for details.
o A kernel module (/lib/modules/`uname -r`/video/nvidia.o or
/lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.o); this kernel
module provides low-level access to your NVIDIA hardware for all of the
above components. It is generally loaded into the kernel when the X
server is started, and is used by the X driver and OpenGL. nvidia.o
consists of two pieces: the binary-only core, and a kernel interface that
must be compiled specifically for your kernel version. Note that the
Linux kernel does not have a consistent binary interface like the X
server, so it is important that this kernel interface be matched with the
version of the kernel that you are using. This can either be accomplished
by compiling yourself, or using precompiled binaries provided for the
kernels shipped with some of the more common Linux distributions.
o OpenGL and GLX header files (/usr/include/GL/gl.h,
/usr/include/GL/glext.h, /usr/include/GL/glx.h, and
/usr/include/GL/glext.h); these are also installed in
/usr/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/include/GL/. You can request that these
files not be included in /usr/include/GL/ by passing the
"--no-opengl-headers" option to the .run file during installation.
o The nvidia-tls libraries (/usr/lib/libnvidia-tls.so.x.y.z and
/usr/lib/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.x.y.z); these files provide thread local
storage support for the NVIDIA OpenGL libraries (libGL, libGLcore, and
libglx). Each nvidia-tls library provides support for a particular thread
local storage model (such as ELF TLS), and the one appropriate for your
system will be loaded at run time.
o The application nvidia-installer (/usr/bin/nvidia-installer) is NVIDIA's
tool for installing and updating NVIDIA drivers. See Chapter 4 for a more
thorough description.
Problems will arise if applications use the wrong version of a library. This
can be the case if there are either old libGL libraries or stale symlinks left
lying around. If you think there may be something awry in your installation,
check that the following files are in place (these are all the files of the
NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver, as well as their symlinks):
/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.so.x.y.z
/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.so -> libglx.so.x.y.z
(may also be in /usr/lib/modules or /usr/lib/xorg/modules)
/usr/lib/libGL.so.x.y.z
/usr/lib/libGL.so.x -> libGL.so.x.y.z
/usr/lib/libGL.so -> libGL.so.x
/usr/lib/libGLcore.so.x.y.z
/usr/lib/libGLcore.so.x -> libGLcore.so.x.y.z
/lib/modules/`uname -r`/video/nvidia.o, or
/lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.o
If there are other libraries whose "soname" conflicts with that of the NVIDIA
libraries, ldconfig may create the wrong symlinks. It is recommended that you
manually remove or rename conflicting libraries (be sure to rename clashing
libraries to something that ldconfig will not look at -- we have found that
prepending "XXX" to a library name generally does the trick), rerun
'ldconfig', and check that the correct symlinks were made. Some libraries that
often create conflicts are "/usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so*" and
"/usr/X11R6/lib/libGLcore.so*".
If the libraries appear to be correct, then verify that the application is
using the correct libraries. For example, to check that the application
/usr/X11R6/bin/glxgears is using the NVIDIA libraries, run:
% ldd /usr/X11R6/bin/glxgears
linux-gate.so.1 => (0xffffe000)
libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGL.so.1 (0xb7ed3000)
libXp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXp.so.6 (0xb7eca000)
libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0xb7eb9000)
libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0xb7dd4000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0xb7d82000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0xb7d5f000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0xb7c47000)
libGLcore.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGLcore.so.1 (0xb6c2f000)
libnvidia-tls.so.1 => /usr/lib/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.1 (0xb6c2d000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0xb6c29000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb7fb2000)
Check the files being used for libGL and libGLcore -- if they are something
other than the NVIDIA libraries, then you will need to either remove the
libraries that are getting in the way or adjust your ld search path using the
'LD_LIBRARY_PATH' environment variable. You may want to consult the man pages
for 'ldconfig' and 'ldd'.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 6. Configuring X for the NVIDIA Driver
______________________________________________________________________________
The X configuration file provides a means to configure the X server. This
section describes the settings necessary to enable the NVIDIA driver. A
comprehensive list of parameters is provided in Appendix B.
The NVIDIA Driver includes a utility called nvidia-xconfig, which is designed
to make editing the X configuration file easy. You can also edit it by hand.
6A. USING NVIDIA-XCONFIG TO CONFIGURE THE X SERVER
nvidia-xconfig will find the X configuration file and modify it to use the
NVIDIA X driver. In most cases, you can simply answer "Yes" when the installer
asks if it should run it. If you need to reconfigure your X server later, you
can run nvidia-xconfig again from a terminal. nvidia-xconfig will make a
backup copy of your configuration file before modifying it.
Note that the X server must be restarted for any changes to its configuration
file to take effect.
More information about nvidia-xconfig can be found in the nvidia-xconfig
manual page by running.
% man nvidia-xconfig
6B. MANUALLY EDITING THE CONFIGURATION FILE
In April 2004 the X.Org Foundation released an X server based on the XFree86
server. While your release may use the X.Org X server, rather than XFree86,
the differences between the two should have no impact on NVIDIA Linux users
with two exceptions:
o The X.Org configuration file is '/etc/X11/xorg.conf' while the XFree86
configuration file is '/etc/X11/XF86Config'. The files use the same
syntax. This document refers to both files as "the X config file".
o The X.Org log file is '/var/log/Xorg.#.log' while the XFree86 log file is
'/var/log/XFree86.#.log' (where '#' is the server number -- usually 0).
The format of the log files is nearly identical. This document refers to
both files as "the X log file".
In order for any changes to be read into the X server, you must edit the file
used by the server. While it is not unreasonable to simply edit both files, it
is easy to determine the correct file by searching for the line
(==) Using config file:
in the X log file. This line indicates the name of the X config file in use.
If you do not have a working X config file, there are a few different ways to
obtain one. A sample config file is included both with the XFree86
distribution and with the NVIDIA driver package (at
'/usr/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/'). Tools for generating a config file (such as
'xf86config') are generally included with Linux. Additional information on the
X config syntax can be found in the XF86Config manual page (`man XF86Config`
or `man xorg.conf`).
If you have a working X config file for a different driver (such as the "nv"
or "vesa" driver), then simply edit the file as follows.
Remove the line:
Driver "nv"
(or Driver "vesa")
(or Driver "fbdev")
and replace it with the line:
Driver "nvidia"
Remove the following lines:
Load "dri"
Load "GLCore"
In the "Module" section of the file, add the line (if it does not already
exist):
Load "glx"
If the X config file does not have a "Module" section, you can safely skip the
last step if the X server installed on your system is an X.Org X server or an
XFree86 X release version 4.4.0 or greater. If you are using an older XFree86
X server, add the following to your X config file:
Section "Module"
Load "extmod"
Load "dbe"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
EndSection
There are numerous options that may be added to the X config file to tune the
NVIDIA X driver. See Appendix B for a complete list of these options.
Once you have completed these edits to the X config file, you may restart X
and begin using the accelerated OpenGL libraries. After restarting X, any
OpenGL application should automatically use the new NVIDIA libraries. (NOTE:
If you encounter any problems, see Chapter 8 for common problem diagnoses.)
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 7. Frequently Asked Questions
______________________________________________________________________________
This section provides answers to frequently asked questions associated with
the NVIDIA Linux x86 Driver and its installation. Common problem diagnoses can
be found in Chapter 8 and tips for new users can be found in Appendix H. Also,
detailed information for specific setups is provided in the Appendices.
NVIDIA-INSTALLER
Q. How do I extract the contents of the '.run' without actually installing the
driver?
A. Run the installer as follows:
# sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.37-pkg1.run --extract-only
This will create the directory NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.37-pkg1, containing
the uncompressed contents of the '.run' file.
Q. How can I see the source code to the kernel interface layer?
A. The source files to the kernel interface layer are in the usr/src/nv
directory of the extracted .run file. To get to these sources, run:
# sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1.run --extract-only
# cd NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1/usr/src/nv/
Q. How and when are the the NVIDIA device files created?
A. Depending on the target system's configuration, the NVIDIA device files
used to be created in one of three different ways:
o at installation time, using mknod
o at module load time, via devfs (Linux device file system)
o at module load time, via hotplug/udev
With current NVIDIA driver releases, device files are created or modified
by the X driver when the X server is started.
By default, the NVIDIA driver will attempt to create device files with the
following attributes:
UID: 0 - 'root'
GID: 0 - 'root'
Mode: 0666 - 'rw-rw-rw-'
Existing device files are changed if their attributes don't match these
defaults. If you want the NVIDIA driver to create the device files with
different attributes, you can specify them with the "NVreg_DeviceFileUID"
(user), "NVreg_DeviceFileGID" (group) and "NVreg_DeviceFileMode" NVIDIA
Linux kernel module parameters.
For example, the NVIDIA driver can be instructed to create device files
with UID=0 (root), GID=44 (video) and Mode=0660 by passing the following
module parameters to the NVIDIA Linux kernel module:
NVreg_DeviceFileUID=0
NVreg_DeviceFileGID=44
NVreg_DeviceFileMode=0660
The "NVreg_ModifyDeviceFiles" NVIDIA kernel module parameter will disable
dynamic device file management, if set to 0.
Q. Why does NVIDIA not provide RPMs anymore?
A. Not every Linux distribution uses RPM, and NVIDIA wanted a single solution
that would work across all Linux distributions. As indicated in the NVIDIA
Software License, Linux distributions are welcome to repackage and
redistribute the NVIDIA Linux driver in whatever package format they wish.
Q. Can the nvidia-installer use a proxy server?
A. Yes, because the FTP support in nvidia-installer is based on snarf, it will
honor the 'FTP_PROXY', 'SNARF_PROXY', and 'PROXY' environment variables.
Q. What is the significance of the 'pkg#' suffix on the '.run' file?
A. The 'pkg#' suffix is used to distinguish between '.run' files containing
the same driver, but different sets of precompiled kernel interfaces. If a
distribution releases a new kernel after an NVIDIA driver is released, the
current NVIDIA driver can be repackaged to include a precompiled kernel
interface for that newer kernel (in addition to all the precompiled kernel
interfaces that were included in the previous package of the driver).
'.run' files with the same version number, but different pkg numbers, only
differ in what precompiled kernel interfaces are included. Additionally,
'.run' files with higher pkg numbers will contain everything the '.run'
files with lower pkg numbers contain.
Q. I have already installed NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.37-pkg1.run, but I see
that NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.37-pkg2.run was just posted on the NVIDIA
Linux driver download page. Should I download and install
NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.37-pkg2.run?
A. This is not necessary. The driver contained within all 173.14.37 '.run'
files will be identical. There is no need to reinstall.
Q. Can I add my own precompiled kernel interfaces to a '.run' file?
A. Yes, the --add-this-kernel '.run' file option will unpack the '.run' file,
build a precompiled kernel interface for the currently running kernel, and
repackage the '.run' file, appending '-custom' to the filename. This may be
useful, for example. if you administer multiple Linux computers, each
running the same kernel.
Q. Where can I find the source code for the 'nvidia-installer' utility?
A. The 'nvidia-installer' utility is released under the GPL. The latest source
code for it is available at:
ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-installer
NVIDIA DRIVER
Q. Where should I start when diagnosing display problems?
A. One of the most useful tools for diagnosing problems is the X log file in
'/var/log'. Lines that begin with "(II)" are information, "(WW)" are
warnings, and "(EE)" are errors. You should make sure that the correct
config file (i.e. the config file you are editing) is being used; look for
the line that begins with:
(==) Using config file:
Also make sure that the NVIDIA driver is being used, rather than the "nv"
or "vesa" driver. Search for
(II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
Lines from the driver should begin with:
(II) NVIDIA(0)
Q. How can I increase the amount of data printed in the X log file?
A. By default, the NVIDIA X driver prints relatively few messages to stderr
and the X log file. If you need to troubleshoot, then it may be helpful to
enable more verbose output by using the X command line options -verbose and
-logverbose, which can be used to set the verbosity level for the 'stderr'
and log file messages, respectively. The NVIDIA X driver will output more
messages when the verbosity level is at or above 5 (X defaults to verbosity
level 1 for 'stderr' and level 3 for the log file). So, to enable verbose
messaging from the NVIDIA X driver to both the log file and 'stderr', you
could start X with the verbosity level set to 5, by doing the following
% startx -- -verbose 5 -logverbose 5
Q. Where can I get 'gl.h' or 'glx.h' so I can compile OpenGL programs?
A. Most systems come with these header files preinstalled. However, NVIDIA
provides its own 'gl.h' and 'glx.h' files, which get installed by default
as part of driver installation. If you prefer that the NVIDIA-distributed
OpenGL header files not be installed, you can pass the --no-opengl-headers
option to the 'NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.37-pkg1.run' file during
installation.
Q. Can I receive email notification of new NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics
Driver releases?
A. Yes. Fill out the form at: http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?FO=driver_update
Q. What is NVIDIA's policy towards development series Linux kernels?
A. NVIDIA does not officially support development series kernels. However, all
the kernel module source code that interfaces with the Linux kernel is
available in the 'usr/src/nv/' directory of the '.run' file. NVIDIA
encourages members of the Linux community to develop patches to these
source files to support development series kernels. A web search will most
likely yield several community supported patches.
Q. Why does X use so much memory?
A. When measuring any application's memory usage, you must be careful to
distinguish between physical system RAM used and virtual mappings of shared
resources. For example, most shared libraries exist only once in physical
memory but are mapped into multiple processes. This memory should only be
counted once when computing total memory usage. In the same way, the video
memory on a graphics card or register memory on any device can be mapped
into multiple processes. These mappings do not consume normal system RAM.
This has been a frequently discussed topic on XFree86 mailing lists; see,
for example:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=xfree-xpert&m=96835767116567&w=2
The 'pmap' utility described in the above thread is available here:
http://web.hexapodia.org/~adi/pmap.c and is a useful tool in distinguishing
between types of memory mappings. For example, while 'top' may indicate
that X is using several hundred MB of memory, the last line of output from
pmap:
mapped: 287020 KB writable/private: 9932 KB shared: 264656 KB
reveals that X is really only using roughly 10MB of system RAM (the
"writable/private" value).
Note, also, that X must allocate resources on behalf of X clients (the
window manager, your web browser, etc); X's memory usage will increase as
more clients request resources such as pixmaps, and decrease as you close X
applications.
Q. Where can I find the tarballs?
A. Plain tarballs are no longer available. The '.run' file is a tarball with a
shell script prepended. You can execute the '.run' file with the
--extract-only option to unpack the tarball.
Q. How do I tell if I have my kernel sources installed?
A. If you are running on a distro that uses RPM (Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE,
etc), then you can use 'rpm' to tell you. At a shell prompt, type:
% rpm -qa | grep kernel
and look at the output. You should see a package that corresponds to your
kernel (often named something like kernel-2.6.15-7) and a kernel source
package with the same version (often named something like
kernel-devel-2.6.15-7 or kernel-source-2.4.18-3). If none of the lines seem
to correspond to a source package, then you will probably need to install
it. If the versions listed mismatch (e.g., kernel-2.6.15-7 vs.
kernel-devel-2.6.15-10), then you will need to update the kernel-devel
package to match the installed kernel. If you have multiple kernels
installed, you need to install the kernel-devel package that corresponds to
your RUNNING kernel (or make sure your installed source package matches the
running kernel). You can do this by looking at the output of 'uname -r' and
matching versions.
Q. Where can I find older driver versions?
A. Please visit ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86_40/
Q. What is SELinux and how does it interact with the NVIDIA driver ?
A. Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) is a set of modifications applied to the
Linux kernel and utilities that implement a security policy architecture.
When in use it requires that the security type on all shared libraries be
set to 'shlib_t'. The installer detects when to set the security type, and
sets it on all shared libraries it installs. The option --force-selinux
passed to the '.run' file overrides the detection of when to set the
security type.
Q. Why do applications that use DGA graphics fail?
A. The NVIDIA driver does not support the graphics component of the
XFree86-DGA (Direct Graphics Access) extension. Applications can use the
XDGASelectInput() function to acquire relative pointer motion, but
graphics-related functions such as XDGASetMode() and XDGAOpenFramebuffer()
will fail.
The graphics component of XFree86-DGA is not supported because it requires
a CPU mapping of framebuffer memory. As graphics cards ship with increasing
quantities of video memory, the NVIDIA X driver has had to switch to a more
dynamic memory mapping scheme that is incompatible with DGA. Furthermore,
DGA does not cooperate with other graphics rendering libraries such as Xlib
and OpenGL because it accesses GPU resources directly.
NVIDIA recommends that applications use OpenGL or Xlib, rather than DGA,
for graphics rendering. Using rendering libraries other than DGA will yield
better performance and improve interoperability with other X applications.
Q. My kernel log contains messages that are prefixed with "Xid"; what do these
messages mean?
A. "Xid" messages indicate that a general GPU error occurred, most often due
to the driver misprogramming the GPU or to corruption of the commands sent
to the GPU. These messages provide diagnostic information that can be used
by NVIDIA to aid in debugging reported problems.
Q. On what NVIDIA hardware is the EXT_framebuffer_object OpenGL extension
supported?
A. EXT_framebuffer_object is supported on GeForce FX, Quadro FX, and newer
GPUs.
Q. I use the Coolbits overclocking interface to adjust my graphics card's
clock frequencies, but the defaults are reset whenever X is restarted. How
do I make my changes persistent?
A. Clock frequency settings are not saved/restored automatically by default to
avoid potential stability and other problems that may be encountered if the
chosen frequency settings differ from the defaults qualified by the
manufacturer. You can use the command line below in '~/.xinitrc' to
automatically apply custom clock frequency settings when the X server is
started:
# nvidia-settings -a GPUOverclockingState=1 -a
GPU2DClockFreqs=, -a GPU3DClockFreqs=,
Here '' and '' are the desired GPU and video memory frequencies
(in MHz), respectively.
Q. Why is the refresh rate not reported correctly by utilities that use the
XRandR X extension (e.g., the GNOME "Screen Resolution Preferences" panel,
`xrandr -q`, etc)?
A. The XRandR X extension is not presently aware of multiple display devices
on a single X screen; it only sees the MetaMode bounding box, which may
contain one or more actual modes. This means that if multiple MetaModes
have the same bounding box, XRandR will not be able to distinguish between
them.
In order to support DynamicTwinView, the NVIDIA X driver must make each
MetaMode appear to be unique to XRandR. Presently, the NVIDIA X driver
accomplishes this by using the refresh rate as a unique identifier.
You can use `nvidia-settings -q RefreshRate` to query the actual refresh
rate on each display device.
This behavior can be disabled by setting the X configuration option
"DynamicTwinView" to FALSE.
For details, see Chapter 13.
Q. Why does starting certain applications result in Xlib error messages
indicating extensions like "XFree86-VidModeExtension" or "SHAPE" are
missing?
A. If your X config file has a "Module" section that does not list the
"extmod" module, some X server extensions may be missing, resulting in
error messages of the form:
Xlib: extension "SHAPE" missing on display ":0.0"
Xlib: extension "XFree86-VidModeExtension" missing on display ":0.0"
Xlib: extension "XFree86-DGA" missing on display ":0.0"
You can solve this problem by adding the line below to your X config file's
"Module" section:
Load "extmod"
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 8. Common Problems
______________________________________________________________________________
This section provides solutions to common problems associated with the NVIDIA
Linux x86 Driver.
Q. My X server fails to start, and my X log file contains the error:
(EE) NVIDIA(0): The NVIDIA kernel module does not appear to
(EE) NVIDIA(0): be receiving interrupts generated by the NVIDIA
graphics
(EE) NVIDIA(0): device PCI:x:x:x. Please see the COMMON PROBLEMS
(EE) NVIDIA(0): section in the README for additional information.
A. This can be caused by a variety of problems, such as PCI IRQ routing
errors, I/O APIC problems or conflicts with other devices sharing the IRQ
(or their drivers).
If possible, configure your system such that your graphics card does not
share its IRQ with other devices (try moving the graphics card to another
slot if applicable, unload/disable the driver(s) for the device(s) sharing
the card's IRQ, or remove/disable the device(s)).
Depending on the nature of the problem, one of (or a combination of) these
kernel parameters might also help:
Parameter Behavior
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
pci=noacpi don't use ACPI for PCI IRQ routing
pci=biosirq use PCI BIOS calls to retrieve the IRQ routing
table
noapic don't use I/O APICs present in the system
acpi=off disable ACPI
Q. My X server fails to start, and my X log file contains the error:
(EE) NVIDIA(0): The interrupt for NVIDIA graphics device PCI:x:x:x
(EE) NVIDIA(0): appears to be edge-triggered. Please see the COMMON
(EE) NVIDIA(0): PROBLEMS section in the README for additional
information.
A. An edge-triggered interrupt means that the kernel has programmed the
interrupt as edge-triggered rather than level-triggered in the Advanced
Programmable Interrupt Controller (APIC). Edge-triggered interrupts are not
intended to be used for sharing an interrupt line between multiple devices;
level-triggered interrupts are the intended trigger for such usage. When
using edge-triggered interrupts, it is common for device drivers using that
interrupt line to stop receiving interrupts. This would appear to the end
user as those devices no longer working, and potentially as a full system
hang. These problems tend to be more common when multiple devices are
sharing that interrupt line.
This occurs when ACPI is not used to program interrupt routing in the APIC.
This often occurs on 2.4 Linux kernels, which do not fully support ACPI, or
2.6 kernels when ACPI is disabled or fails to initialize. In these cases,
the Linux kernel falls back to tables provided by the system BIOS. In some
cases the system BIOS assumes ACPI will be used for routing interrupts and
configures these tables to incorrectly label all interrupts as
edge-triggered. The current interrupt configuration can be found in
/proc/interrupts.
Available workarounds include: updating to a newer system BIOS, trying a
2.6 kernel with ACPI enabled, or passing the 'noapic' option to the kernel
to force interrupt routing through the traditional Programmable Interrupt
Controller (PIC). Newer kernels also provide an interrupt polling mechanism
to attempt to work around this problem. This mechanism can be enabled by
passing the 'irqpoll' option to the kernel.
Currently, the NVIDIA driver will attempt to detect edge triggered
interrupts and X will purposely fail to start (to avoid stability issues).
This behavior can be overridden by setting the "NVreg_RMEdgeIntrCheck"
NVIDIA Linux kernel module parameter. This parameter defaults to "1", which
enables the edge triggered interrupt detection. Set this parameter to "0"
to disable this detection.
Q. X starts for me, but OpenGL applications terminate immediately.
A. If X starts but you have trouble with OpenGL, you most likely have a
problem with other libraries in the way, or there are stale symlinks. See
Chapter 5 for details. Sometimes, all it takes is to rerun 'ldconfig'.
You should also check that the correct extensions are present;
% xdpyinfo
should show the "GLX" and "NV-GLX" extensions present. If these two
extensions are not present, then there is most likely a problem loading the
glx module, or it is unable to implicitly load GLcore. Check your X config
file and make sure that you are loading glx (see Chapter 6). If your X
config file is correct, then check the X log file for warnings/errors
pertaining to GLX. Also check that all of the necessary symlinks are in
place (refer to Chapter 5).
Q. When Xinerama is enabled, my stereo glasses are shuttering only when the
stereo application is displayed on one specific X screen. When the
application is displayed on the other X screens, the stereo glasses stop
shuttering.
A. This problem occurs with DDC and "blue line" stereo glasses, that get the
stereo signal from one video port of the graphics card. When a X screen
does not display any stereo drawable the stereo signal is disabled on the
associated video port.
Forcing stereo flipping allows the stereo glasses to shutter continuously.
This can be done by enabling the OpenGL control "Force Stereo Flipping" in
nvidia-settings, or by setting the X configuration option
"ForceStereoFlipping" to "1".
Q. Stereo is not in sync across multiple displays.
A. There are two cases where this may occur. If the displays are attached to
the same GPU, and one of them is out of sync with the stereo glasses, you
will need to reconfigure your monitors to drive identical mode timings; see
Chapter 19 for details.
If the displays are attached to different GPUs, the only way to synchronize
stereo across the displays is with a G-Sync device, which is only supported
by certain Quadro cards. See Chapter 26 for details. This applies to
seperate GPUs on seperate cards as well as seperate GPUs on the same card,
such as Quadro FX 4500 X2. Note that the Quadro FX 4500 X2 only provides a
single DIN connector for stereo, tied to the bottommost GPU. In order to
synchronize onboard stereo on the other GPU you must use a G-Sync device.
Q. I just upgraded my kernel, and now the NVIDIA kernel module will not load.
A. The kernel interface layer of the NVIDIA kernel module must be compiled
specifically for the configuration and version of your kernel. If you
upgrade your kernel, then the simplest solution is to reinstall the driver.
ADVANCED: You can install the NVIDIA kernel module for a non running kernel
(for example: in the situation where you just built and installed a new
kernel, but have not rebooted yet) with a command line such as this:
# sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.37-pkg1.run --kernel-name='KERNEL_NAME'
Where 'KERNEL_NAME' is what 'uname -r' would report if the target kernel
were running.
Q. My X server fails to start, and my X log file contains the error:
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to load the NVIDIA kernel module!
A. The X driver will abort with this error message if the NVIDIA kernel module
fails to load. If you receive this error, you should check the output of
`dmesg` for kernel error messages and/or attempt to load the kernel module
explicitly with `modprobe nvidia`. If unresolved symbols are reported, then
the kernel module was most likely built against a Linux kernel source tree
(or kernel headers) for a kernel revision or configuration that doesn't
match the running kernel.
You can specify the location of the kernel source tree (or headers) when
you install the NVIDIA driver using the --kernel-source-path command line
option (see `sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.37-pkg1.run --advanced-options` for
details).
Old versions of the module-init-tools include `modprobe` binaries that
report an error when instructed to load a module that's already loaded into
the kernel. Please upgrade your module-init-tools if you receive an error
message to this effect.
The X server reads '/proc/sys/kernel/modprobe' to determine the path to the
`modprobe` utility and falls back to '/sbin/modprobe' if the file doesn't
exist. Please make sure that this path is valid and refers to a `modprobe`
binary compatible with the Linux kernel running on your system.
The "LoadKernelModule" X driver option can be used to change the default
behavior and disable kernel module auto-loading.
Q. Installing the NVIDIA kernel module gives an error message like:
#error Modules should never use kernel-headers system headers
#error but headers from an appropriate kernel-source
A. You need to install the source for the Linux kernel. In most situations you
can fix this problem by installing the kernel-source or kernel-devel
package for your distribution
Q. OpenGL applications crash and print out the following warning:
WARNING: Your system is running with a buggy dynamic loader.
This may cause crashes in certain applications. If you
experience crashes you can try setting the environment
variable __GL_SINGLE_THREADED to 1. For more information,
consult the FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS section in
the file /usr/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/README.txt.
A. The dynamic loader on your system has a bug which will cause applications
linked with pthreads, and that dlopen() libGL multiple times, to crash.
This bug is present in older versions of the dynamic loader. Distributions
that shipped with this loader include but are not limited to Red Hat Linux
6.2 and Mandrake Linux 7.1. Version 2.2 and later of the dynamic loader are
known to work properly. If the crashing application is single threaded then
setting the environment variable '__GL_SINGLE_THREADED' to "1" will prevent
the crash. In the bash shell you would enter:
% export __GL_SINGLE_THREADED=1
and in csh and derivatives use:
% setenv __GL_SINGLE_THREADED 1
Previous releases of the NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver attempted
to work around this problem. Unfortunately, the workaround caused problems
with other applications and was removed after version 1.0-1541.
Q. Quake3 crashes when changing video modes.
A. You are probably experiencing a problem described above. Please check the
text output for the "WARNING" message described in the previous hint.
Setting '__GL_SINGLE_THREADED' to "1" as will fix the problem.
Q. I cannot build the NVIDIA kernel module, or, I can build the NVIDIA kernel
module, but modprobe/insmod fails to load the module into my kernel.
A. These problems are generally caused by the build using the wrong kernel
header files (i.e. header files for a different kernel version than the one
you are running). The convention used to be that kernel header files should
be stored in '/usr/include/linux/', but that is deprecated in favor of
'/lib/modules/RELEASE/build/include' (where RELEASE is the result of 'uname
-r'. The 'nvidia-installer' should be able to determine the location on
your system; however, if you encounter a problem you can force the build to
use certain header files by using the --kernel-include-dir option. For this
to work you will of course need the appropriate kernel header files
installed on your system. Consult the documentation that came with your
distribution; some distributions do not install the kernel header files by
default, or they install headers that do not coincide properly with the
kernel you are running.
Q. There are problems running Heretic II.
A. Heretic II installs, by default, a symlink called 'libGL.so' in the
application directory. You can remove or rename this symlink, since the
system will then find the default 'libGL.so' (which our drivers install in
'/usr/lib'). From within Heretic II you can then set your render mode to
OpenGL in the video menu. There is also a patch available to Heretic II
from lokigames at: http://www.lokigames.com/products/heretic2/updates.php3/
Q. My system hangs when switching to a virtual terminal if I have rivafb
enabled.
A. Using both rivafb and the NVIDIA kernel module at the same time is
currently broken. In general, using two independent software drivers to
drive the same piece of hardware is a bad idea.
Q. Compiling the NVIDIA kernel module gives this error:
You appear to be compiling the NVIDIA kernel module with
a compiler different from the one that was used to compile
the running kernel. This may be perfectly fine, but there
are cases where this can lead to unexpected behavior and
system crashes.
If you know what you are doing and want to override this
check, you can do so by setting IGNORE_CC_MISMATCH.
In any other case, set the CC environment variable to the
name of the compiler that was used to compile the kernel.
A. You should compile the NVIDIA kernel module with the same compiler version
that was used to compile your kernel. Some Linux kernel data structures are
dependent on the version of gcc used to compile it; for example, in
'include/linux/spinlock.h':
...
* Most gcc versions have a nasty bug with empty initializers.
*/
#if (__GNUC__ > 2)
typedef struct { } rwlock_t;
#define RW_LOCK_UNLOCKED (rwlock_t) { }
#else
typedef struct { int gcc_is_buggy; } rwlock_t;
#define RW_LOCK_UNLOCKED (rwlock_t) { 0 }
#endif
If the kernel is compiled with gcc 2.x, but gcc 3.x is used when the kernel
interface is compiled (or vice versa), the size of rwlock_t will vary, and
things like ioremap will fail. To check what version of gcc was used to
compile your kernel, you can examine the output of:
% cat /proc/version
To check what version of gcc is currently in your '$PATH', you can examine
the output of:
% gcc -v
Q. X fails with error
Failed to allocate LUT context DMA
A. This is one of the possible consequences of compiling the NVIDIA kernel
interface with a different gcc version than used to compile the Linux
kernel (see above).
Q. I recently updated various libraries on my system using my Linux
distributor's update utility, and the NVIDIA graphics driver no longer
works.
A. Conflicting libraries may have been installed by your distribution's update
utility; see Chapter 5 for details on how to diagnose this.
Q. I have rebuilt the NVIDIA kernel module, but when I try to insert it, I get
a message telling me I have unresolved symbols.
A. Unresolved symbols are most often caused by a mismatch between your kernel
sources and your running kernel. They must match for the NVIDIA kernel
module to build correctly. Make sure your kernel sources are installed and
configured to match your running kernel.
Q. I am unable to load the NVIDIA kernel module that I compiled for the Red
Hat Linux 7.3 2.4.18-3bigmem kernel.
A. The kernel header files Red Hat Linux distributes for Red Hat Linux 7.3
2.4.18-3bigmem kernel are misconfigured. NVIDIA's precompiled kernel module
for this kernel can be loaded, but if you want to compile the NVIDIA kernel
interface files yourself for this kernel, then you will need to perform the
following:
# cd /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/
# make mrproper
# cp configs/kernel-2.4.18-i686-bigmem.config .config
# make oldconfig dep
Note: Red Hat Linux ships kernel header files that are simultaneously
configured for ALL of their kernels for a particular distribution version.
A header file generated at boot time sets up a few parameters that select
the correct configuration. Rebuilding the kernel headers with the above
commands will create header files suitable for the Red Hat Linux 7.3
2.4.18-3bigmem kernel configuration only, thus making the header files for
the other configurations unusable.
Q. OpenGL applications leak significant amounts of memory on my system!
A. If your kernel is making use of the -rmap VM, the system may be leaking
memory due to a memory management optimization introduced in -rmap14a. The
-rmap VM has been adopted by several popular distributions, the memory leak
is known to be present in some of the distribution kernels; it has been
fixed in -rmap15e.
If you suspect that your system is affected, try upgrading your kernel or
contact your distribution's vendor for assistance.
Q. Some OpenGL applications (like Quake3 Arena) crash when I start them on Red
Hat Linux 9.0.
A. Some versions of the glibc package shipped by Red Hat that support TLS do
not properly handle using dlopen() to access shared libraries which use
some TLS models. This problem is exhibited, for example, when Quake3 Area
dlopen() 's NVIDIA's libGL library. Please obtain at least glibc-2.3.2-11.9
which is available as an update from Red Hat.
Q. I have installed the driver, but my Enable 3D Acceleration checkbox is
still grayed out.
A. Most distribution-provided configuration applets are not aware of the
NVIDIA accelerated driver, and consequently will not update themselves when
you install the driver. Your driver, if it has been installed properly,
should function fine.
Q. When changing settings in games like Quake 3 Arena, or Wolfenstein Enemy
Territory, the game crashes and I see this error:
...loading libGL.so.1: QGL_Init: dlopen libGL.so.1 failed:
/usr/lib/tls/libGL.so.1: shared object cannot be dlopen()ed:
static TLS memory too small
A. These games close and reopen the NVIDIA OpenGL driver (via dlopen() /
dlclose()) when settings are changed. On some versions of glibc (such as
the one shipped with Red Hat Linux 9), there is a bug that leaks static TLS
entries. This glibc bug causes subsequent re-loadings of the OpenGL driver
to fail. This is fixed in more recent versions of glibc; see Red Hat bug
#89692: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=89692
Q. X crashes during 'startx', and my X log file contains this error message:
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to obtain a shared memory identifier.
A. The NVIDIA OpenGL driver and the NVIDIA X driver require shared memory to
communicate; you must have 'CONFIG_SYSVIPC' enabled in your kernel.
Q. When I try to install the driver, the installer claims that X is running,
even though I have exited X.
A. The installer detects the presence of an X server by checking for X's lock
files: '/tmp/.Xn-lock', where 'n' is the number of the X Display (the
installer checks for X Displays 0-7). If you have exited X, but one of
these files has been left behind, then you will need to manually delete the
lock file. DO NOT remove this file if X is still running!
Q. My system runs, but seems unstable.
A. Your stability problems may be AGP-related. See Chapter 12 for details.
Q. OpenGL applications are running slowly
A. The application is probably using a different library that still remains on
your system, rather than the NVIDIA supplied OpenGL library. See Chapter 5
for details.
Q. There are problems running Quake2.
A. Quake2 requires some minor setup to get it going. First, in the Quake2
directory, the install creates a symlink called 'libGL.so' that points at
'libMesaGL.so'. This symlink should be removed or renamed. Second, in order
to run Quake2 in OpenGL mode, you must type
% quake2 +set vid_ref glx +set gl_driver libGL.so
Quake2 does not seem to support any kind of full-screen mode, but you can
run your X server at the same resolution as Quake2 to emulate full-screen
mode.
Q. I am using either nForce of nForce2 internal graphics, and I see warnings
like this in my X log file:
Not using mode "1600x1200" (exceeds valid memory bandwidth usage)
A. Integrated graphics have more strict memory bandwidth limitations that
limit the resolution and refresh rate of the modes you request. To work
around this, you can reduce the maximum refresh rate by lowering the upper
value of the VertRefresh range in the 'Monitor' section of your X config
file. Though not recommended, you can disable the memory bandwidth test
with the NoBandWidthTest X config file option.
Q. X takes a long time to start (possibly several minutes).
A. Most of the X startup delay problems we have found are caused by incorrect
data in video BIOSes about what display devices are possibly connected or
what i2c port should be used for detection. You can work around these
problems with the X config option IgnoreDisplayDevices (see the description
in Appendix B).
Q. Fonts are incorrectly sized after installing the NVIDIA driver.
A. Incorrectly sized fonts are generally caused by incorrect DPI (Dots Per
Inch) information. You can check what X thinks the physical size of your
monitor is, by running:
% xdpyinfo | grep dimensions
This will report the size in pixels, and in millimeters.
If these numbers are wrong, you can correct them by modifying the X
server's DPI setting. See Appendix E for details.
Q. General problems with ALi chipsets
A. There are some known timing and signal integrity issues on ALi chipsets.
The following tips may help stabilize problematic ALI systems:
o Disable TURBO AGP MODE in the BIOS.
o When using a P5A upgrade to BIOS Revision 1002 BETA 2.
o When using 1007, 1007A or 1009 adjust the IO Recovery Time to 4
cycles.
o AGP is disabled by default on some ALi chipsets (ALi1541, ALi1647) to
work around severe system stability problems with these chipsets. See
the comments for EnableALiAGP in 'nv-reg.h' to force AGP on anyway.
Q. Using GNOME configuration utilities, I am unable to get a resolution above
800x600.
A. The installation of GNOME provided in operating systems such as Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 4 and Solaris 10 Update 2 contain several competing
interfaces for specifying resolution:
'System Settings' -> 'Display'
which will update the X configuration file, and
'Applications' -> 'Preferences' -> 'Screen Resolution'
which will update the per-user screen resolution using the XRandR
extension. Your desktop resolution will be limited to the smaller of the
two settings. Be sure to check the setting of each.
Q. X does not restore the VGA console when run on a TV. I get this error
message in my X log file:
Unable to initialize the X int10 module; the console may not be
restored correctly on your TV.
A. The NVIDIA X driver uses the X Int10 module to save and restore console
state on TV out, and will not be able to restore the console correctly if
it cannot use the Int10 module. If you have built the X server yourself,
please be sure you have built the Int10 module. If you are using a build of
the X server provided by your operating system and are missing the Int10
module, contact your operating system distributor.
Q. OpenGL applications don't work, and my X log file contains the error:
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Unable to map device node /dev/zero with read, write, and
(EE) NVIDIA(0): execute privileges. The GLX extension will be disabled
(EE) NVIDIA(0): on this X screen. Please see the COMMON PROBLEMS
(EE) NVIDIA(0): section in the README for more information.
A. The NVIDIA OpenGL driver must be able to map the '/dev/zero' device node
with read, write, and execute privileges in order to function correctly.
The driver needs this ability to allocate executable memory, which is used
for optimizations that require generating code at run-time. Currently, GLX
cannot run without these optimizations.
Check that your '/dev' filesystem is set up correctly. In particular,
mounting the '/dev' file system with the 'noexec' option will cause this to
happen. If you haven't changed the configuration of your '/dev' filesystem,
please contact your operating system distributor.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 9. Known Issues
______________________________________________________________________________
The following problems still exist in this release and are in the process of
being resolved.
Known Issues
OpenGL and dlopen()
There are some issues with older versions of the glibc dynamic loader
(e.g., the version that shipped with Red Hat Linux 7.2) and applications
such as Quake3 and Radiant, that use dlopen(). See Chapter 7 for more
details.
Multicard, Multimonitor
In some cases, the secondary card is not initialized correctly by the
NVIDIA kernel module. You can work around this by enabling the XFree86
Int10 module to soft-boot all secondary cards. See Appendix B for details.
Interaction with pthreads
Single-threaded applications that use dlopen() to load NVIDIA's libGL
library, and then use dlopen() to load any other library that is linked
against libpthread will crash in libGL. This does not happen in NVIDIA's
new ELF TLS OpenGL libraries (see Chapter 5 for a description of the ELF
TLS OpenGL libraries). Possible workarounds for this problem are:
1. Load the library that is linked with libpthread before loading libGL.
2. Link the application with libpthread.
The X86-64 platform (AMD64/EM64T) and 2.6 kernels
Many 2.4 and 2.6 x86_64 kernels have an accounting problem in their
implementation of the change_page_attr kernel interface. Early 2.6 kernels
include a check that triggers a BUG() when this situation is encountered
(triggering a BUG() results in the current application being killed by the
kernel; this application would be your OpenGL application or potentially
the X server). The accounting issue has been resolved in the 2.6.11
kernel.
We have added checks to recognize that the NVIDIA kernel module is being
compiled for the x86-64 platform on a kernel between 2.6.0 and 2.6.11. In
this case, we will disable usage of the change_page_attr kernel interface.
This will avoid the accounting issue but leaves the system in danger of
cache aliasing (see entry below on Cache Aliasing for more information
about cache aliasing). Note that this change_page_attr accounting issue
and BUG() can be triggered by other kernel subsystems that rely on this
interface.
If you are using a 2.6 x86_64 kernel, it is recommended that you upgrade
to a 2.6.11 or later kernel.
Also take note of common dma issues on 64-bit platforms in Chapter 10.
Cache Aliasing
Cache aliasing occurs when multiple mappings to a physical page of memory
have conflicting caching states, such as cached and uncached. Due to these
conflicting states, data in that physical page may become corrupted when
the processor's cache is flushed. If that page is being used for DMA by a
driver such as NVIDIA's graphics driver, this can lead to hardware
stability problems and system lockups.
NVIDIA has encountered bugs with some Linux kernel versions that lead to
cache aliasing. Although some systems will run perfectly fine when cache
aliasing occurs, other systems will experience severe stability problems,
including random lockups. Users experiencing stability problems due to
cache aliasing will benefit from updating to a kernel that does not cause
cache aliasing to occur.
NVIDIA has added driver logic to detect cache aliasing and to print a
warning with a message similar to the following:
NVRM: bad caching on address 0x1cdf000: actual 0x46 != expected 0x73
If you see this message in your log files and are experiencing stability
problems, you should update your kernel to the latest version.
If the message persists after updating your kernel, send a bug report to
NVIDIA.
64-Bit BARs (Base Address Registers)
Starting with native PCI Express GPUs, NVIDIA's GPUs will advertise a
64-bit BAR capability (a Base Address Register stores the location of a
PCI I/O region, such as registers or a frame buffer). This means that the
GPU's PCI I/O regions (registers and frame buffer) can be placed above the
32-bit address space (the first 4 gigabytes of memory).
The decision of where the BAR is placed is made by the system BIOS at boot
time. If the BIOS supports 64-bit BARs, then the NVIDIA PCI I/O regions
may be placed above the 32-bit address space. If the BIOS does not support
this feature, then our PCI I/O regions will be placed within the 32-bit
address space as they have always been.
Unfortunately, current Linux kernels (as of 2.6.11.x) do not understand or
support 64-bit BARs. If the BIOS does place any NVIDIA PCI I/O regions
above the 32-bit address space, the kernel will reject the BAR and the
NVIDIA driver will not work.
There is no known workaround at this point.
Kernel virtual address space exhaustion on the X86 platform
On X86 systems and AMD64/EM64T systems using X86 kernels, only 4GB of
virtual address space are available, which the Linux kernel typically
partitions such that user processes are allocated 3GB, the kernel itself
1GB. Part of the kernel's share is used to create a direct mapping of
system memory (RAM). Depending on how much system memory is installed, the
kernel virtual address space remaining for other uses varies in size and
may be as small as 128MB, if 1GB of system memory (or more) are installed.
By default, the kernel reserves a minimum of 128MB.
The kernel virtual address space still available after the creation of the
direct system memory mapping is used by both the kernel and by drivers to
map I/O resources, and for some memory allocations. Depending on the
number of consumers and their respective requirements, the Linux kernel's
virtual address space may be exhausted. Newer Linux kernels print an error
message of the form below when this happens:
allocation failed: out of vmalloc space - use vmalloc= to increase
size.
The NVIDIA kernel module requires portions of the kernel's virtual address
space for each GPU and for certain memory allocations. If no more than
128MB are available to the kernel and device drivers at boot time, the
NVIDIA kernel module may be unable to initialize all GPUs, or fail memory
allocations. This is not usually a problem with only 1 or 2 GPUs, however
depending on the number of other drivers and their usage patterns, it can
be; it is likely to be a problem with 3 or more GPUs.
Possible solutions for this problem include:
o If available, the 'vmalloc' kernel parameter can be used to increase
the size of the kernel virtual address space reserved by the Linux
kernel (the default is 128MB). Incrementally raising this to find the
best balance between the size of the kernel virtual address space
made available and the size of the direct system memory mapping is
recommended. You can achieve this by passing 'vmalloc=192M',
'vmalloc=256MB', ..., to the kernel and checking if the above error
message continues to be printed.
Note that some versions of the GRUB boot loader have problems
calculating the memory layout and loading the initrd if the 'vmalloc'
kernel parameter is used. The 'uppermem' GRUB command can be used to
force GRUB to load the initrd into a lower region of system memory to
work around this problem. This will not adversely affect system
performance once the kernel has been loaded. The suggested syntax is:
title Kernel Title
uppermem 524288
kernel (hdX,Y)/boot/vmlinuz...
Also note that the 'vmalloc' kernel parameter only exists on Linux
2.6.9 and later kernels. On older kernels, the amount of system
memory used by the kernel can be reduced with the 'mem' kernel
parameter, which also reduces the size of the direct mapping and thus
increases the size of the kernel virtual address space available. For
example, 'mem=512M' instructs the kernel to ignore all but the first
512MB of system memory. Although it is undesirable to reduce the
amount of usable system memory, this approach can be used to check if
initialization problems are caused by kernel virtual address space
exhaustion.
o In some cases, disabling frame buffer drivers such as vesafb can
help, as such drivers may attempt to map all or a large part of the
installed graphics cards' video memory into the kernel's virtual
address space, which rapidly consumes this resource. You can disable
the vesafb frame buffer driver by passing these parameters to the
kernel: 'video=vesa:off vga=normal'.
o Some Linux kernels can be configured with alternate address space
layouts (e.g. 2.8GB:1.2GB, 2GB:2GB, etc.). This option can be used to
avoid exhaustion of the kernel virtual address space without reducing
the size of the direct system memory mapping. Some Linux distributors
also provide kernels that use seperate 4GB address spaces for user
processes and the kernel. Such Linux kernels provide sufficient
kernel virtual address space on typical systems.
o If your system is equipped with an X86-64 (AMD64/EM64T) processor, it
is recommended that you switch to a 64-bit Linux kernel/distribution.
Due to the significantly larger address space provided by the X86-64
processors' addressing capabilities, X86-64 kernels will not run out
of kernel virtual address space in the foreseeable future.
Valgrind
The NVIDIA OpenGL implementation makes use of self modifying code. To
force Valgrind to retranslate this code after a modification you must run
using the Valgrind command line option:
--smc-check=all
Without this option Valgrind may execute incorrect code causing incorrect
behavior and reports of the form:
==30313== Invalid write of size 4
MMConfig-based PCI Configuration Space Accesses
2.6 kernels have added support for Memory-Mapped PCI Configuration Space
accesses. Unfortunately, there are many problems with this mechanism, and
the latest kernel updates are more careful about enabling this support.
The NVIDIA driver may be unable to reliably read/write the PCI
Configuration Space of NVIDIA devices when the kernel is using the
MMCONFIG method to access PCI Configuration Space, specifically when using
multiple GPUs and multiple CPUs on 32-bit kernels.
This access method can be identified by the presence of the string "PCI:
Using MMCONFIG" in the 'dmesg' output on your system. This access method
can be disabled via the "pci=nommconf" kernel parameter.
Notebooks
If you are using a notebook see the "Known Notebook Issues" in Chapter 18.
FSAA
When FSAA is enabled (the __GL_FSAA_MODE environment variable is set to a
value that enables FSAA and a multisample visual is chosen), the rendering
may be corrupted when resizing the window.
libGL DSO finalizer and pthreads
When a multithreaded OpenGL application exits, it is possible for libGL's
DSO finalizer (also known as the destructor, or "_fini") to be called
while other threads are executing OpenGL code. The finalizer needs to free
resources allocated by libGL. This can cause problems for threads that are
still using these resources. Setting the environment variable
"__GL_NO_DSO_FINALIZER" to "1" will work around this problem by forcing
libGL's finalizer to leave its resources in place. These resources will
still be reclaimed by the operating system when the process exits. Note
that the finalizer is also executed as part of dlclose(3), so if you have
an application that dlopens(3) and dlcloses(3) libGL repeatedly,
"__GL_NO_DSO_FINALIZER" will cause libGL to leak resources until the
process exits. Using this option can improve stability in some
multithreaded applications, including Java3D applications.
XVideo and the Composite X extension
XVideo will not work correctly when Composite is enabled unless using
X.Org 7.1 or later. See Chapter 23.
This section describes problems that will not be fixed. Usually, the source of
the problem is beyond the control of NVIDIA. Following is the list of
problems:
Problems that Will Not Be Fixed
Gigabyte GA-6BX Motherboard
This motherboard uses a LinFinity regulator on the 3.3 V rail that is only
rated to 5 A -- less than the AGP specification, which requires 6 A. When
diagnostics or applications are running, the temperature of the regulator
rises, causing the voltage to the NVIDIA GPU to drop as low as 2.2 V.
Under these circumstances, the regulator cannot supply the current on the
3.3 V rail that the NVIDIA GPU requires.
This problem does not occur when the graphics card has a switching
regulator or when an external power supply is connected to the 3.3 V rail.
VIA KX133 and 694X Chip sets with AGP 2x
On Athlon motherboards with the VIA KX133 or 694X chip set, such as the
ASUS K7V motherboard, NVIDIA drivers default to AGP 2x mode to work around
insufficient drive strength on one of the signals.
Irongate Chip sets with AGP 1x
AGP 1x transfers are used on Athlon motherboards with the Irongate chipset
to work around a problem with signal integrity.
ALi chipsets, ALi1541 and ALi1647
On ALi1541 and ALi1647 chipsets, NVIDIA drivers disable AGP to work around
timing issues and signal integrity issues. See Chapter 8 for more
information on ALi chipsets.
NV-CONTROL versions 1.8 and 1.9
Version 1.8 of the NV-CONTROL X Extension introduced target types for
setting and querying attributes as well as receiving event notification on
targets. Targets are objects like X Screens, GPUs and G-Sync devices.
Previously, all attributes were described relative to an X Screen. These
new bits of information (target type and target id) were packed in a
non-compatible way in the protocol stream such that addressing X Screen 1
or higher would generate an X protocol error when mixing NV-CONTROL client
and server versions.
This packing problem has been fixed in the NV-CONTROL 1.10 protocol,
making it possible for the older (1.7 and prior) clients to communicate
with NV-CONTROL 1.10 servers. Furthermore, the NV-CONTROL 1.10 client
library has been updated to accommodate the target protocol packing bug
when communicating with a 1.8 or 1.9 NV-CONTROL server. This means that
the NV-CONTROL 1.10 client library should be able to communicate with any
version of the NV-CONTROL server.
NVIDIA recommends that NV-CONTROL client applications relink with version
1.10 or later of the NV-CONTROL client library (libXNVCtrl.a, in the
nvidia-settings-1.0.tar.gz tarball). The version of the client library can
be determined by checking the NV_CONTROL_MAJOR and NV_CONTROL_MINOR
definitions in the accompanying nv_control.h.
The only web released NVIDIA Linux driver that is affected by this problem
(i.e., the only driver to use either version 1.8 or 1.9 of the NV-CONTROL
X extension) is 1.0-8756.
I/O APIC (SMP)
If you are experiencing stability problems with a Linux SMP computer and
seeing I/O APIC warning messages from the Linux kernel, system reliability
may be greatly improved by setting the "noapic" kernel parameter.
Local APIC (UP)
On some systems, setting the "Local APIC Support on Uniprocessors" kernel
configuration option can have adverse effects on system stability and
performance. If you are experiencing lockups with a Linux UP computer and
have this option set, try disabling local APIC support.
nForce2 Chipsets and AGPGART
Some of the earlier versions of agpgart to support the nForce2 chipset are
known to contain bugs that result in system hangs. The suggested
workaround is to use NVAGP or update to a newer kernel. Known problematic
versions include all known Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 kernels (through
Update 7).
If a broken agpgart is used on an nForce2 chipset, the NVIDIA driver will
attempt to work around these agpgart bugs as best it can, by recovering
from AGP errors and eventually disabling AGP.
To configure NVAGP, see Chapter 12.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 10. Allocating DMA Buffers on 64-bit Platforms
______________________________________________________________________________
NVIDIA GPUs have limits on how much physical memory they can address. This
directly impacts DMA buffers, as a DMA buffer allocated in physical memory
that is unaddressable by the NVIDIA GPU cannot be used (or may be truncated,
resulting in bad memory accesses).
All pre-PCI Express GPUs and non-Native PCI Express GPUs (often known as
bridged GPUs) are limited to 32 bits of physical address space, which
corresponds to 4 GB of memory. On a system with greater than 4 GB of memory,
allocating usable DMA buffers can be a problem. Native PCI Express GPUs are
capable of addressing greater than 32 bits of physical address space and do
not experience the same problems.
Newer kernels provide a simple way to allocate memory that is guaranteed to
reside within the 32 bit physical address space. Kernel 2.6.15 provides this
functionality with the __GFP_DMA32 interface. Kernels earlier than this
version provide a software I/O TLB on Intel's EM64T and IOMMU support on AMD's
AMD64 platform.
Unfortunately, some problems exist with both interfaces. Early implementations
of the Linux SWIOTLB set aside a very small amount of memory for its memory
pool (only 4 MB). Also, when this memory pool is exhausted, some SWIOTLB
implementations forcibly panic the kernel. This is also true for some
implementations of the IOMMU interface.
Kernel panics and related stability problems on Intel's EM64T platform can be
avoided by increasing the size of the SWIOTLB pool with the 'swiotlb' kernel
parameter. This kernel parameter expects the desired size as a number of 4 KB
pages. NVIDIA suggests raising the size of the SWIOTLB pool to 64 MB; this is
accomplished by passing 'swiotlb=16384' to the kernel. note that newer Linux
2.6 kernels already default to a 64 MB SWIOTLB pool, see below for more
information.
Starting with Linux 2.6.9, the default size of the SWIOTLB is 64 MB and
overflow handling is improved. Both of these changes are expected to greatly
improve stability on Intel's EM64T platform. If you consider upgrading your
Linux kernel to benefit from these improvements, NVIDIA recommends that you
upgrade to Linux 2.6.11 or a more recent Linux kernel. See the previous
section for additional information.
On AMD's AMD64 platform, the size of the IOMMU can be configured in the system
BIOS or, if no IOMMU BIOS option is available, using the 'iommu=memaper'
kernel parameter. This kernel parameter expects an order and instructs the
Linux kernel to create an IOMMU of size 32 MB^order overlapping physical
memory. If the system's default IOMMU is smaller than 64 MB, the Linux kernel
automatically replaces it with a 64 MB IOMMU.
To reduce the risk of stability problems as a result of IOMMU or SWIOTLB
exhaustion on the X86-64 platform, the NVIDIA Linux driver internally limits
its use of these interfaces. By default, the driver will not use more than 60
MB of IOMMU/SWIOTLB space, leaving 4 MB for the rest of the system (assuming a
64 MB IOMMU/SWIOTLB).
This limit can be adjusted with the 'NVreg_RemapLimit' NVIDIA kernel module
option. Specifically, if the IOMMU/SWIOTLB is larger than 64 MB, the limit can
be adjusted to take advantage of the additional space. The 'NVreg_RemapLimit'
option expects the size argument in bytes.
NVIDIA recommends leaving 4 MB available for the rest of the system when
changing the limit. For example, if the internal limit is to be relaxed to
account for a 128 MB IOMMU/SWIOTLB, the recommended remap limit is 124 MB.
This remap limit can be specified by passing 'NVreg_RemapLimit=0x7c00000' to
the NVIDIA kernel module.
Also see the 'The X86-64 platform (AMD64/EM64T) and 2.6 kernels' section in
Chapter 9.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 11. Specifying OpenGL Environment Variable Settings
______________________________________________________________________________
11A. FULL SCENE ANTIALIASING
Antialiasing is a technique used to smooth the edges of objects in a scene to
reduce the jagged "stairstep" effect that sometimes appears. Full-scene
antialiasing is supported on GeForce or newer hardware. By setting the
appropriate environment variable, you can enable full-scene antialiasing in
any OpenGL application on these GPUs.
Several antialiasing methods are available and you can select between them by
setting the __GL_FSAA_MODE environment variable appropriately. Note that
increasing the number of samples taken during FSAA rendering may decrease
performance.
The following tables describe the possible values for __GL_FSAA_MODE and the
effects that they have on various NVIDIA GPUs.
__GL_FSAA_MODE GeForce, GeForce2, Quadro, and Quadro2 Pro
--------------- ------------------------------------------------------
0 FSAA disabled
1 FSAA disabled
2 FSAA disabled
3 1.5 x 1.5 Supersampling
4 2 x 2 Supersampling
5 FSAA disabled
6 FSAA disabled
7 FSAA disabled
__GL_FSAA_MODE GeForce4 MX, GeForce4 4xx Go, Quadro4 380,550,580
XGL, and Quadro4 NVS
--------------- ------------------------------------------------------
0 FSAA disabled
1 2x Bilinear Multisampling
2 2x Quincunx Multisampling
3 FSAA disabled
4 2 x 2 Supersampling
5 FSAA disabled
6 FSAA disabled
7 FSAA disabled
__GL_FSAA_MODE GeForce3, Quadro DCC, GeForce4 Ti, GeForce4 4200 Go,
and Quadro4 700,750,780,900,980 XGL
--------------- ------------------------------------------------------
0 FSAA disabled
1 2x Bilinear Multisampling
2 2x Quincunx Multisampling
3 FSAA disabled
4 4x Bilinear Multisampling
5 4x Gaussian Multisampling
6 2x Bilinear Multisampling by 4x Supersampling
7 FSAA disabled
__GL_FSAA_MODE GeForce FX, GeForce 6xxx, GeForce 7xxx, Quadro FX
--------------- ------------------------------------------------------
0 FSAA disabled
1 2x Bilinear Multisampling
2 2x Quincunx Multisampling
3 FSAA disabled
4 4x Bilinear Multisampling
5 4x Gaussian Multisampling
6 2x Bilinear Multisampling by 4x Supersampling
7 4x Bilinear Multisampling by 4x Supersampling
8 4x Bilinear Multisampling by 2x Supersampling
(available on GeForce FX and later GPUs; not
available on Quadro GPUs)
__GL_FSAA_MODE GeForce 8xxx, G8xGL
--------------- ------------------------------------------------------
0 FSAA disabled
1 2x Bilinear Multisampling
2 FSAA disabled
3 FSAA disabled
4 4x Bilinear Multisampling
5 FSAA disabled
6 FSAA disabled
7 4x Bilinear Multisampling by 4x Supersampling
8 FSAA disabled
9 8x Bilinear Multisampling
10 8x
11 16x
12 16xQ
13 8x Bilinear Multisampling by 4x Supersampling
11B. ANISOTROPIC TEXTURE FILTERING
Automatic anisotropic texture filtering can be enabled by setting the
environment variable __GL_LOG_MAX_ANISO. The possible values are:
__GL_LOG_MAX_ANISO Filtering Type
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
0 No anisotropic filtering
1 2x anisotropic filtering
2 4x anisotropic filtering
3 8x anisotropic filtering
4 16x anisotropic filtering
4x and greater are only available on GeForce3 or newer GPUs; 16x is only
available on GeForce 6800 or newer GPUs.
11C. VBLANK SYNCING
Setting the environment variable __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK to a non-zero value will
force glXSwapBuffers to sync to your monitor's vertical refresh (perform a
swap only during the vertical blanking period).
When using __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK with TwinView, OpenGL can only sync to one of
the display devices; this may cause tearing corruption on the display device
to which OpenGL is not syncing. You can use the environment variable
__GL_SYNC_DISPLAY_DEVICE to specify to which display device OpenGL should
sync. You should set this environment variable to the name of a display
device; for example "CRT-1". Look for the line "Connected display device(s):"
in your X log file for a list of the display devices present and their names.
You may also find it useful to review Chapter 13 "Configuring Twinview" and
the section on Ensuring Identical Mode Timings in Chapter 19.
11D. DISABLING CPU-SPECIFIC FEATURES
Setting the environment variable __GL_FORCE_GENERIC_CPU to a non-zero value
will inhibit the use of CPU-specific features such as MMX, SSE, or 3DNOW!. Use
of this option may result in performance loss.
11E. CONTROLLING THE SORTING OF OPENGL FBCONFIGS
The NVIDIA GLX implementation sorts FBConfigs returned by glXChooseFBConfig()
as described in the GLX specification. To disable this behavior set
__GL_SORT_FBCONFIGS to 0 (zero), then FBConfigs will be returned in the order
they were received from the X server. To examine the order in which FBConfigs
are returned by the X server run:
nvidia-settings --glxinfo
This option may be be useful to work around problems in which applications
pick an unexpected FBConfig.
11F. OPENGL YIELD BEHAVIOR
There are several cases where the NVIDIA OpenGL driver needs to wait for
external state to change before continuing. To avoid consuming too much CPU
time in these cases, the driver will sometimes yield so the kernel can
schedule other processes to run while the driver waits. For example, when
waiting for free space in a command buffer, if the free space has not become
available after a certain number of iterations, the driver will yield before
it continues to loop.
By default, the driver calls sched_yield() to do this. However, this can cause
the calling process to be scheduled out for a relatively long period of time
if there are other, same-priority processes competing for time on the CPU. One
example of this is when an OpenGL-based composite manager is moving and
repainting a window and the X server is trying to update the window as it
moves, which are both CPU-intensive operations.
You can use the __GL_YIELD environment variable to work around these
scheduling problems. This variable allows the user to specify what the driver
should do when it wants to yield. The possible values are:
__GL_YIELD Behavior
--------------- ------------------------------------------------------
By default, OpenGL will call sched_yield() to yield.
"NOTHING" OpenGL will never yield.
"USLEEP" OpenGL will call usleep(0) to yield.
11G. CONTROLLING WHICH OPENGL FBCONFIGS ARE AVAILABLE
The NVIDIA GLX implementation will hide FBConfigs that are associated with a
32-bit ARGB visual when the XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS environment variable is
defined. This matches the behavior of libX11, which will hide those visuals
from XGetVisualInfo and XMatchVisualInfo. This environment variable is useful
when applications are confused by the presence of these FBConfigs.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 12. Configuring AGP
______________________________________________________________________________
There are several choices for configuring the NVIDIA kernel module's use of
AGP on Linux. You can choose to either use the NVIDIA builtin AGP driver
(NvAGP), or the AGP driver that comes with the Linux kernel (AGPGART). This is
controlled through the "NvAGP" option in your X config file:
Option "NvAGP" "0" ... disables AGP support
Option "NvAGP" "1" ... use NvAGP, if possible
Option "NvAGP" "2" ... use AGPGART, if possible
Option "NvAGP" "3" ... try AGPGART; if that fails, try NvAGP
The default is 3 (the default was 1 until after 1.0-1251).
You should use the AGP driver that works best with your AGP chipset. If you
are experiencing problems with stability, you may want to start by disabling
AGP and seeing if that solves the problems. Then you can experiment with the
AGP driver configuration.
You can query the current AGP status at any time via the '/proc' filesystem
interface (see Chapter 21).
To use the Linux 2.4 AGPGART driver, you will need to compile it with your
kernel and either statically link it in, or build it as a module and load it.
To use the Linux 2.6 AGPGART driver, both the AGPGART frontend module,
'apggart.ko', and the backend module for your AGP chipset ('nvidia-agp.ko',
'intel-agp.ko', 'via-agp.ko', ...) need to be statically linked into the
kernel, or built as modules and loaded.
NVIDIA builtin AGP support is unavailable if an AGPGART backend driver is
loaded into the kernel. On Linux 2.4, it is recommended that you compile
AGPGART as a module and make sure that it is not loaded when trying to use the
NVIDIA AGP driver. On Linux 2.6, the 'agpgart.ko' frontend module will always
be loaded, as it is used by the NVIDIA kernel module to determine if an
AGPGART backend module is loaded. When the NVIDIA AGP driver is to be used on
a Linux 2.6 system, it is recommended that you make sure the AGPGART backend
drivers are built as modules and that they are not loaded.
Also note that changing AGP drivers generally requires a reboot before the
changes actually take effect.
If you are using a recent Linux 2.6 kernel that has the Linux AGPGART driver
statically linked in (some distribution kernels do), you can pass the
agp=off
parameter to the kernel (via LILO or GRUB, for example) to disable AGPGART
support. As of Linux 2.6.11, most AGPGART backend drivers should respect this
parameter.
The following AGP chipsets are supported by the NVIDIA AGP driver; for all
other chipsets it is recommended that you use the AGPGART module.
Supported AGP Chipsets
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Intel 440LX
Intel 440BX
Intel 440GX
Intel 815 ("Solano")
Intel 820 ("Camino")
Intel 830M
Intel 840 ("Carmel")
Intel 845 ("Brookdale")
Intel 845G
Intel 850 ("Tehama")
Intel 855 ("Odem")
Intel 860 ("Colusa")
Intel 865G ("Springdale")
Intel 875P ("Canterwood")
Intel E7205 ("Granite Bay")
Intel E7505 ("Placer")
AMD 751 ("Irongate")
AMD 761 ("IGD4")
AMD 762 ("IGD4 MP")
AMD 8151 ("Lokar")
VIA 8371
VIA 82C694X
VIA KT133
VIA KT266
VIA KT400
VIA P4M266
VIA P4M266A
VIA P4X400
VIA K8T800
VIA K8N800
VIA PT880
VIA KT880
RCC CNB20LE
RCC 6585HE
Micron SAMDDR ("Samurai")
Micron SCIDDR ("Scimitar")
NVIDIA nForce
NVIDIA nForce2
NVIDIA nForce3
ALi 1621
ALi 1631
ALi 1647
ALi 1651
ALi 1671
SiS 630
SiS 633
SiS 635
SiS 645
SiS 646
SiS 648
SiS 648FX
SiS 650
SiS 651
SiS 655
SiS 655FX
SiS 661
SiS 730
SiS 733
SiS 735
SiS 745
SiS 755
ATI RS200M
If you are experiencing AGP stability problems, you should be aware of the
following:
Additional AGP Information
Support for the processor's Page Size Extension on Athlon Processors
Some Linux kernels have a conflicting cache attribute bug that is exposed
by advanced speculative caching in newer AMD Athlon family processors (AMD
Athlon XP, AMD Athlon 4, AMD Athlon MP, and Models 6 and above AMD Duron).
This kernel bug usually shows up under heavy use of accelerated 3D
graphics with an AGP graphics card.
Linux distributions based on kernel 2.4.19 and later *should* incorporate
the bug fix, but older kernels require help from the user in ensuring that
a small portion of advanced speculative caching is disabled (normally done
through a kernel patch) and a boot option is specified in order to apply
the whole fix.
NVIDIA's driver automatically disables the small portion of advanced
speculative caching for the affected AMD processors without the need to
patch the kernel; it can be used even on kernels which do already
incorporate the kernel bug fix. Additionally, for older kernels the user
performs the boot option portion of the fix by explicitly disabling 4MB
pages. This can be done from the boot command line by specifying:
mem=nopentium
Or by adding the following line to /etc/lilo.conf:
append = "mem=nopentium"
AGP Rate
You may want to decrease the AGP rate setting if you are seeing lockups
with the value you are currently using. You can do so by extracting the
'.run' file:
# sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.37-pkg1.run --extract-only
# cd NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.37-pkg1/usr/src/nv/
Then edit nv-reg.h, and make the following changes:
- NV_DEFINE_REG_ENTRY(__NV_REQ_AGP_RATE, 15);
+ NV_DEFINE_REG_ENTRY(__NV_REQ_AGP_RATE, 4); /* force AGP Rate to 4x
*/
or
+ NV_DEFINE_REG_ENTRY(__NV_REQ_AGP_RATE, 2); /* force AGP Rate to 2x
*/
or
+ NV_DEFINE_REG_ENTRY(__NV_REQ_AGP_RATE, 1); /* force AGP Rate to 1x
*/
Then recompile and load the new kernel module. To do this, run
'nvidia-installer' with the -n command line option:
# cd ../../..; ./nvidia-installer -n
AGP drive strength BIOS setting (Via-based motherboards)
Many Via-based motherboards allow adjusting the AGP drive strength in the
system BIOS. The setting of this option largely affects system stability,
the range between 0xEA and 0xEE seems to work best for NVIDIA hardware.
Setting either nibble to 0xF generally results in severe stability
problems.
If you decide to experiment with this, you need to be aware of the fact
that you are doing so at your own risk and that you may render your system
unbootable with improper settings until you reset the setting to a working
value (w/ a PCI graphics card or by resetting the BIOS to its default
values).
System BIOS version
Make sure you have the latest system BIOS provided by the motherboard
manufacturer.
On ALi1541 and ALi1647 chipsets, NVIDIA drivers disable AGP to work around
timing and signal integrity problems. You can force AGP to be enabled on
these chipsets by setting NVreg_EnableALiAGP to 1. Note that this may
cause the system to become unstable.
Early system BIOS revisions for the ASUS A7V8X-X KT400 motherboard
misconfigure the chipset when an AGP 2.x graphics card is installed; if X
hangs on your ASUS KT400 system with either Linux AGPGART or NvAGP enabled
and the installed graphics card is not an AGP 8x device, make sure that
you have the latest system BIOS installed.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 13. Configuring TwinView
______________________________________________________________________________
TwinView is a mode of operation where two display devices (digital flat
panels, CRTs, and TVs) can display the contents of a single X screen in any
arbitrary configuration. This method of multiple monitor use has several
distinct advantages over other techniques (such as Xinerama):
o A single X screen is used. The NVIDIA driver conceals all information
about multiple display devices from the X server; as far as X is
concerned, there is only one screen.
o Both display devices share one frame buffer. Thus, all the functionality
present on a single display (e.g., accelerated OpenGL) is available with
TwinView.
o No additional overhead is needed to emulate having a single desktop.
If you are interested in using each display device as a separate X screen, see
Chapter 15.
13A. X CONFIG TWINVIEW OPTIONS
To enable TwinView, you must specify the following option in the Device
section of your X Config file:
Option "TwinView"
You may also use any of the following options, though they are not required:
Option "MetaModes" ""
Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" ""
Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" ""
Option "HorizSync" ""
Option "VertRefresh" ""
Option "TwinViewOrientation" ""
Option "ConnectedMonitor" ""
See detailed descriptions of each option below.
Alternatively, you can enable TwinView by running
nvidia-xconfig --twinview
and restarting your X server. Or, you can configure TwinView dynamically in
the "Display Configuration" page in nvidia-settings.
13B. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF OPTIONS
TwinView
This option is required to enable TwinView; without it, all other TwinView
related options are ignored.
SecondMonitorHorizSync
SecondMonitorVertRefresh
You specify the constraints of the second monitor through these options.
The values given should follow the same convention as the "HorizSync" and
"VertRefresh" entries in the Monitor section. As the XF86Config man page
explains it: the ranges may be a comma separated list of distinct values
and/or ranges of values, where a range is given by two distinct values
separated by a dash. The HorizSync is given in kHz, and the VertRefresh is
given in Hz.
These options are normally not needed: by default, the NVIDIA X driver
retrieves the valid frequency ranges from the display device's EDID (see
Appendix B for a description of the "UseEdidFreqs" option). The
SecondMonitor options will override any frequency ranges retrieved from
the EDID.
HorizSync
VertRefresh
Which display device is "first" and which is "second" is often unclear.
For this reason, you may use these options instead of the SecondMonitor
versions. With these options, you can specify a semicolon-separated list
of frequency ranges, each optionally prepended with a display device name.
For example:
Option "HorizSync" "CRT-0: 50-110; DFP-0: 40-70"
Option "VertRefresh" "CRT-0: 60-120; DFP-0: 60"
See Appendix C on Display Device Names for more information.
These options are normally not needed: by default, the NVIDIA X driver
retrieves the valid frequency ranges from the display device's EDID (see
Appendix B for a description of the "UseEdidFreqs" option). The
"HorizSync" and "VertRefresh" options override any frequency ranges
retrieved from the EDID or any frequency ranges specified with the
"SecondMonitorHorizSync" and "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" options.
MetaModes
MetaModes are "containers" that store information about what mode should
be used on each display device at any given time. Even if only one display
device is actively in use, the NVIDIA X driver always uses a MetaMode to
encapsulate the mode information per display device, so that it can
support dynamically enabling TwinView.
Multiple MetaModes list the combinations of modes and the sequence in
which they should be used. When the NVIDIA driver tells X what modes are
available, it is really the minimal bounding box of the MetaMode that is
communicated to X, while the "per display device" mode is kept internal to
the NVIDIA driver. In MetaMode syntax, modes within a MetaMode are comma
separated, and multiple MetaModes are separated by semicolons. For
example:
", ; , "
Where is the name of the mode to be used on display device 0
concurrently with used on display device 1. A mode switch
will then cause to be used on display device 0 and to be used on display device 1. Here is an example MetaMode:
Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024,1280x1024; 1024x768,1024x768"
If you want a display device to not be active for a certain MetaMode, you
can use the mode name "NULL", or simply omit the mode name entirely:
"1600x1200, NULL; NULL, 1024x768"
or
"1600x1200; , 1024x768"
Optionally, mode names can be followed by offset information to control
the positioning of the display devices within the virtual screen space;
e.g.,
"1600x1200 +0+0, 1024x768 +1600+0; ..."
Offset descriptions follow the conventions used in the X "-geometry"
command line option; i.e., both positive and negative offsets are valid,
though negative offsets are only allowed when a virtual screen size is
explicitly given in the X config file.
When no offsets are given for a MetaMode, the offsets will be computed
following the value of the TwinViewOrientation option (see below). Note
that if offsets are given for any one of the modes in a single MetaMode,
then offsets will be expected for all modes within that single MetaMode;
in such a case offsets will be assumed to be +0+0 when not given.
When not explicitly given, the virtual screen size will be computed as the
the bounding box of all MetaMode bounding boxes. MetaModes with a bounding
box larger than an explicitly given virtual screen size will be discarded.
A MetaMode string can be further modified with a "Panning Domain"
specification; e.g.,
"1024x768 @1600x1200, 800x600 @1600x1200"
A panning domain is the area in which a display device's viewport will be
panned to follow the mouse. Panning actually happens on two levels with
TwinView: first, an individual display device's viewport will be panned
within its panning domain, as long as the viewport is contained by the
bounding box of the MetaMode. Once the mouse leaves the bounding box of
the MetaMode, the entire MetaMode (i.e., all display devices) will be
panned to follow the mouse within the virtual screen. Note that individual
display devices' panning domains default to being clamped to the position
of the display devices' viewports, thus the default behavior is just that
viewports remain "locked" together and only perform the second type of
panning.
The most beneficial use of panning domains is probably to eliminate dead
areas -- regions of the virtual screen that are inaccessible due to
display devices with different resolutions. For example:
"1600x1200, 1024x768"
produces an inaccessible region below the 1024x768 display. Specifying a
panning domain for the second display device:
"1600x1200, 1024x768 @1024x1200"
provides access to that dead area by allowing you to pan the 1024x768
viewport up and down in the 1024x1200 panning domain.
Offsets can be used in conjunction with panning domains to position the
panning domains in the virtual screen space (note that the offset
describes the panning domain, and only affects the viewport in that the
viewport must be contained within the panning domain). For example, the
following describes two modes, each with a panning domain width of 1900
pixels, and the second display is positioned below the first:
"1600x1200 @1900x1200 +0+0, 1024x768 @1900x768 +0+1200"
Because it is often unclear which mode within a MetaMode will be used on
each display device, mode descriptions within a MetaMode can be prepended
with a display device name. For example:
"CRT-0: 1600x1200, DFP-0: 1024x768"
If no MetaMode string is specified, then the X driver uses the modes
listed in the relevant "Display" subsection, attempting to place matching
modes on each display device.
TwinViewOrientation
This option controls the positioning of the second display device relative
to the first within the virtual X screen, when offsets are not explicitly
given in the MetaModes. The possible values are:
"RightOf" (the default)
"LeftOf"
"Above"
"Below"
"Clone"
When "Clone" is specified, both display devices will be assigned an offset
of 0,0.
Because it is often unclear which display device is "first" and which is
"second", TwinViewOrientation can be confusing. You can further clarify
the TwinViewOrientation with display device names to indicate which
display device is positioned relative to which display device. For
example:
"CRT-0 LeftOf DFP-0"
ConnectedMonitor
With this option you can override what the NVIDIA kernel module detects is
connected to your graphics card. This may be useful, for example, if any
of your display devices do not support detection using Display Data
Channel (DDC) protocols. Valid values are a comma-separated list of
display device names; for example:
"CRT-0, CRT-1"
"CRT"
"CRT-1, DFP-0"
WARNING: this option overrides what display devices are detected by the
NVIDIA kernel module, and is very seldom needed. You really only need this
if a display device is not detected, either because it does not provide
DDC information, or because it is on the other side of a KVM
(Keyboard-Video-Mouse) switch. In most other cases, it is best not to
specify this option.
Just as in all X config entries, spaces are ignored and all entries are case
insensitive.
13C. DYNAMIC TWINVIEW
Using the NV-CONTROL X extension, the display devices in use by an X screen,
the mode pool for each display device, and the MetaModes for each X screen can
be dynamically manipulated. The "Display Configuration" page in
nvidia-settings uses this functionality to modify the MetaMode list and then
uses XRandR to switch between MetaModes. This gives the ability to dynamically
configure TwinView.
The details of how this works are documented in the nv-control-dpy.c sample
NV-CONTROL client in the nvidia-settings source tarball.
Because the NVIDIA X driver can now transition into and out of TwinView
dynamically, MetaModes are always used internally by the NVIDIA X driver,
regardless of how many display devices are currently in use by the X screen
and regardless of whether the TwinView X configuration option was specified.
One implication of this implementation is that each MetaMode must be uniquely
identifiable to the XRandR X extension. Unfortunately, two MetaModes with the
same bounding box will look the same to XRandR. For example, two MetaModes
with different orientations:
"CRT: 1600x1200 +0+0, DFP: 1600x1200 +1600+0"
"CRT: 1600x1200 +1600+0, DFP: 1600x1200 +0+0"
will look identical to the XRandR or XF86VidMode X extensions, because they
have the same total size (3200x1200), and nvidia-settings would not be able to
use XRandR to switch between these MetaModes. To work around this limitation,
the NVIDIA X driver "lies" about the refresh rate of each MetaMode, using the
refresh rate of the MetaMode as a unique identifier.
The XRandR extension is currently being redesigned by the X.Org community, so
the refresh rate workaround may be removed at some point in the future. This
workaround can also be disabled by setting the "DynamicTwinView" X
configuration option to FALSE, which will disable NV-CONTROL support for
manipulating MetaModes, but will cause the XRandR and XF86VidMode visible
refresh rate to be accurate.
FREQUENTLY ASKED TWINVIEW QUESTIONS
Q. Nothing gets displayed on my second monitor; what is wrong?
A. Monitors that do not support monitor detection using Display Data Channel
(DDC) protocols (this includes most older monitors) are not detectable by
your NVIDIA card. You need to explicitly tell the NVIDIA X driver what you
have connected using the "ConnectedMonitor" option; e.g.,
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT, CRT"
Q. Will window managers be able to appropriately place windows (e.g., avoiding
placing windows across both display devices, or in inaccessible regions of
the virtual desktop)?
A. Yes. The NVIDIA X driver provides a Xinerama extension that X clients (such
as window managers) can use to discover the current TwinView configuration.
Note that the Xinerama protocol provides no way to notify clients when a
configuration change occurs, so if you modeswitch to a different MetaMode,
your window manager will still think you have the previous configuration.
Using the Xinerama extension, in conjunction with the XF86VidMode extension
to get modeswitch events, window managers should be able to determine the
TwinView configuration at any given time.
Unfortunately, the data provided by XineramaQueryScreens() appears to
confuse some window managers; to work around such broken window mangers,
you can disable communication of the TwinView screen layout with the
"NoTwinViewXineramaInfo" X config Option (see Appendix B for details).
The order that display devices are reported in via the TwinView Xinerama
information can be configured with the TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder X
configuration option.
Be aware that the NVIDIA driver cannot provide the Xinerama extension if
the X server's own Xinerama extension is being used. Explicitly specifying
Xinerama in the X config file or on the X server commandline will prohibit
NVIDIA's Xinerama extension from installing, so make sure that the X
server's log file does not contain:
(++) Xinerama: enabled
if you want the NVIDIA driver to be able to provide the Xinerama extension
while in TwinView.
Another solution is to use panning domains to eliminate inaccessible
regions of the virtual screen (see the MetaMode description above).
A third solution is to use two separate X screens, rather than use
TwinView. See Chapter 15.
Q. Why can I not get a resolution of 1600x1200 on the second display device
when using a GeForce2 MX?
A. Because the second display device on the GeForce2 MX was designed to be a
digital flat panel, the Pixel Clock for the second display device is only
150 MHz. This effectively limits the resolution on the second display
device to somewhere around 1280x1024 (for a description of how Pixel Clock
frequencies limit the programmable modes, see the XFree86 Video Timings
HOWTO). This constraint is not present on GeForce4 or GeForce FX GPUs --
the maximum pixel clock is the same on both heads.
Q. Do video overlays work across both display devices?
A. Hardware video overlays only work on the first display device. The current
solution is that blitted video is used instead on TwinView.
Q. How are virtual screen dimensions determined in TwinView?
A. After all requested modes have been validated, and the offsets for each
MetaMode's viewports have been computed, the NVIDIA driver computes the
bounding box of the panning domains for each MetaMode. The maximum bounding
box width and height is then found.
Note that one side effect of this is that the virtual width and virtual
height may come from different MetaModes. Given the following MetaMode
string:
"1600x1200,NULL; 1024x768+0+0, 1024x768+0+768"
the resulting virtual screen size will be 1600 x 1536.
Q. Can I play full screen games across both display devices?
A. Yes. While the details of configuration will vary from game to game, the
basic idea is that a MetaMode presents X with a mode whose resolution is
the bounding box of the viewports for that MetaMode. For example, the
following:
Option "MetaModes" "1024x768,1024x768; 800x600,800x600"
Option "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf"
produce two modes: one whose resolution is 2048x768, and another whose
resolution is 1600x600. Games such as Quake 3 Arena use the VidMode
extension to discover the resolutions of the modes currently available. To
configure Quake 3 Arena to use the above MetaMode string, add the following
to your q3config.cfg file:
seta r_customaspect "1"
seta r_customheight "600"
seta r_customwidth "1600"
seta r_fullscreen "1"
seta r_mode "-1"
Note that, given the above configuration, there is no mode with a
resolution of 800x600 (remember that the MetaMode "800x600, 800x600" has a
resolution of 1600x600"), so if you change Quake 3 Arena to use a
resolution of 800x600, it will display in the lower left corner of your
screen, with the rest of the screen grayed out. To have single head modes
available as well, an appropriate MetaMode string might be something like:
"800x600,800x600; 1024x768,NULL; 800x600,NULL; 640x480,NULL"
More precise configuration information for specific games is beyond the
scope of this document, but the above examples coupled with numerous online
sources should be enough to point you in the right direction.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 14. Configuring GLX in Xinerama
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA Linux Driver supports GLX when Xinerama is enabled on similar GPUs.
The Xinerama extension takes multiple physical X screens (possibly spanning
multiple GPUs), and binds them into one logical X screen. This allows windows
to be dragged between GPUs and to span across multiple GPUs. The NVIDIA driver
supports hardware accelerated OpenGL rendering across all NVIDIA GPUs when
Xinerama is enabled.
To configure Xinerama
1. Configure multiple X screens (refer to the XF86Config(5x) or
xorg.conf(5x) manpages for details).
2. Enable Xinerama by adding the line
Option "Xinerama" "True"
to the "ServerFlags" section of your X config file.
Requirements:
o Using identical GPUs is recommended. Some combinations of non-identical,
but similar, GPUs are supported. If a GPU is incompatible with the rest
of a Xinerama desktop then no OpenGL rendering will appear on the screens
driven by that GPU. Rendering will still appear normally on screens
connected to other supported GPUs. In this situation the X log file will
include a message of the form:
(WW) NVIDIA(2): The GPU driving screen 2 is incompatible with the rest of
(WW) NVIDIA(2): the GPUs composing the desktop. OpenGL rendering will
(WW) NVIDIA(2): be disabled on screen 2.
o The NVIDIA X driver must be used for all X screens in the server.
o Only the intersection of capabilities across all GPUs will be advertised.
The maximum OpenGL viewport size depends on the hardware used, and is
described by the following table. If an OpenGL window is larger than the
maximum viewport, regions beyond the viewport will be blank.
OpenGL Viewport Maximums in Xinerama
GeForce GPUs before GeForce 8: 4096 x 4096 pixels
GeForce 8 and newer GPUs: 8192 x 8192 pixels
Quadro: as large as the Xinerama
desktop
o X configuration options that affect GLX operation (e.g.: stereo,
overlays) should be set consistently across all X screens in the X
server.
Known Issues:
o Versions of XFree86 prior to 4.5 and versions of X.Org prior to 6.8.0
lack the required interfaces to properly implement overlays with the
Xinerama extension. On earlier server versions mixing overlays and
Xinerama will result in rendering corruption. If you are using the
Xinerama extension with overlays, it is recommended that you upgrade to
XFree86 4.5, X.Org 6.8.0, or newer.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 15. Configuring Multiple X Screens on One Card
______________________________________________________________________________
GPUs that support TwinView (Chapter 13) can also be configured to treat each
connected display device as a separate X screen.
While there are several disadvantages to this approach as compared to TwinView
(e.g.: windows cannot be dragged between X screens, hardware accelerated
OpenGL cannot span the two X screens), it does offer several advantages over
TwinView:
o If each display device is a separate X screen, then properties that may
vary between X screens may vary between displays (e.g.: depth, root
window size, etc).
o Hardware that can only be used on one display at a time (e.g.: video
overlays, hardware accelerated RGB overlays), and which consequently
cannot be used at all when in TwinView, can be exposed on the first X
screen when each display is a separate X screen.
o TwinView is a fairly new feature. X has historically used one screen per
display device.
To configure two separate X screens to share one graphics card, here is what
you will need to do:
First, create two separate Device sections, each listing the BusID of the
graphics card to be shared and listing the driver as "nvidia", and assign each
a separate screen:
Section "Device"
Identifier "nvidia0"
Driver "nvidia"
# Edit the BusID with the location of your graphics card
BusID "PCI:2:0:0"
Screen 0
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "nvidia1"
Driver "nvidia"
# Edit the BusID with the location of your graphics card
BusId "PCI:2:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection
Then, create two Screen sections, each using one of the Device sections:
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "nvidia0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1600x1200" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "nvidia1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1600x1200" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection
EndSection
(Note: You'll also need to create a second Monitor section) Finally, update
the ServerLayout section to use and position both Screen sections:
Section "ServerLayout"
...
Screen 0 "Screen0"
Screen 1 "Screen1" leftOf "Screen0"
...
EndSection
For further details, refer to the XF86Config(5x) or xorg.conf(5x) manpages.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 16. Configuring TV-Out
______________________________________________________________________________
NVIDIA GPU-based graphics cards with a TV-Out connector can use a television
as another display device (the same way that it would use a CRT or digital
flat panel). The TV can be used by itself, or in conjunction with another
display device in a TwinView or multiple X screen configuration. If a TV is
the only display device connected to your graphics card, it will be used as
the primary display when you boot your system (i.e. the console will come up
on the TV just as if it were a CRT).
The NVIDIA X driver populates the mode pool for the TV with all the mode sizes
that the driver supports with the given TV standard and the TV encoder on the
graphics card. These modes are given names that correspond to their
resolution; e.g., "800x600".
Because these TV modes only depend on the TV encoder and the TV standard, TV
modes do not go through normal mode validation. The X configuration options
HorizSync and VertRefresh are not used for TV mode validation.
Additionally, the NVIDIA driver contains a hardcoded list of mode sizes that
it can drive for each combination of TV encoder and TV standard. Therefore,
custom modelines in your X configuration file are ignored for TVs.
To use your TV with X, there are several relevant X configuration options:
o The Modes in the screen section of your X configuration file; you can use
these to request any of the modes in the mode pool which the X driver
created for this combination of TV standard and TV encoder. Examples
include "640x480" and "800x600". If in doubt, use "nvidia-auto-select".
o The "TVStandard" option should be added to your screen section; valid
values are:
TVStandard Description
------------- --------------------------------------------------
"PAL-B" used in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany,
Guinea, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy,
Malaysia, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland
"PAL-D" used in China and North Korea
"PAL-G" used in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy,
Malaysia, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland
"PAL-H" used in Belgium
"PAL-I" used in Hong Kong and The United Kingdom
"PAL-K1" used in Guinea
"PAL-M" used in Brazil
"PAL-N" used in France, Paraguay, and Uruguay
"PAL-NC" used in Argentina
"NTSC-J" used in Japan
"NTSC-M" used in Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Puerto
Rico, South Korea, Taiwan, United States of
America, and Venezuela
"HD480i" 480 line interlaced
"HD480p" 480 line progressive
"HD720p" 720 line progressive
"HD1080i" 1080 line interlaced
"HD1080p" 1080 line progressive
"HD576i" 576 line interlace
"HD576p" 576 line progressive
The line in your X config file should be something like:
Option "TVStandard" "NTSC-M"
If you do not specify a TVStandard, or you specify an invalid value, the
default "NTSC-M" will be used. Note: if your country is not in the above
list, select the country closest to your location.
o The "UseDisplayDevice" option can be used if there are multiple display
devices connected, and you want the connected TV to be used instead of
the connected CRTs and/or DFPs. E.g.,
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "TV"
Using the "UseDisplayDevice" option, rather than the "ConnectedMonitor"
option, is recommended.
o The "TVOutFormat" option can be used to force the output format. Without
this option, the driver autodetects the output format. Unfortunately, it
does not always do this correctly. The output format can be forced with
the "TVOutFormat" option; valid values are:
TVOutFormat Description Supported TV
standards
------------------- ------------------- -------------------
"AUTOSELECT" The driver PAL, NTSC, HD
autodetects the
output format
(default value).
"COMPOSITE" Force Composite PAL, NTSC
output format
"SVIDEO" Force S-Video PAL, NTSC
output format
"COMPONENT" Force Component HD
output format, also
called YPrPp
"SCART" Force Scart output PAL, NTSC
format, also called
Peritel
The line in your X config file should be something like:
Option "TVOutFormat" "SVIDEO"
o The "TVOverScan" option can be used to enable Overscan, when the TV
encoder supports it. Valid values are decimal values in the range 1.0
(which means overscan as much as possible: make the image as large as
possible) and 0.0 (which means disable overscanning: make the image as
small as possible). Overscanning is disabled (0.0) by default.
The NVIDIA X driver may not restore the console correctly with XFree86
versions older than 4.3 when the console is a TV. This is due to binary
incompatibilities between XFree86 int10 modules. If you use a TV as your
console it is recommended that you upgrade to XFree86 4.3 or later.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 17. Using the XRandR Extension
______________________________________________________________________________
X.Org version X11R6.8.1 contains support for the rotation component of the
XRandR extension, which allows screens to be rotated at 90 degree increments.
The driver supports rotation with the extension when 'Option "RandRRotation"'
is enabled in the X config file.
Workstation RGB or CI overlay visuals will function at lower performance and
the video overlay will not be available when RandRRotation is enabled.
You can query the available rotations using the 'xrandr' command line
interface to the RandR extension by running:
xrandr -q
You can set the rotation orientation of the screen by running any of:
xrandr -o left
xrandr -o right
xrandr -o inverted
xrandr -o normal
Rotation may also be set through the nvidia-settings configuration utility in
the "Rotation Settings" panel.
SLI and rotation are incompatible. Rotation will be disabled when SLI is
enabled.
TwinView and rotation can be used together, but rotation affects the entire
desktop. This means that the same rotation setting will apply to both display
devices in a TwinView pair. Note also that the "TwinViewOrientation" option
applies before rotation does. For example, if you have two screens
side-by-side and you want to rotate them, you should set "TwinViewOrientation"
to "Above" or "Below".
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 18. Configuring a Notebook
______________________________________________________________________________
18A. INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION
Installation and configuration of the NVIDIA Linux Driver Set on a notebook is
the same as for any desktop environment, with a few additions, as described
below.
18B. POWER MANAGEMENT
All notebook NVIDIA GPUs support power management, both S3 (also known as
"Standby" or "Suspend to RAM") and S4 (also known as "Hibernate", "Suspend to
Disk" or "SWSUSP"). Power management is system-specific and is dependent upon
all the components in the system; some systems may be more problematic than
other systems.
Most recent notebook NVIDIA GPUs also support PowerMizer, which monitors
application work load to adjust system parameters to deliver the optimal
balance of performance and battery life. However, PowerMizer is only enabled
by default on some notebooks. Please see the known issues below for more
details.
18C. HOTKEY SWITCHING OF DISPLAY DEVICES
Mobile NVIDIA GPUs also have the capacity to react to a display change hotkey
event, toggling between each of the connected display devices and each
possible combination of the connected display devices (note that only 2
display devices may be active at a time).
Hotkey switching dynamically changes the TwinView configuration; a given
hotkey event will indicate which display devices should be in use at that
time, and all MetaModes currently configured on the X screen will be updated
to use the new configuration of display devices.
Another important aspect of hotkey functionality is that you can dynamically
connect and remove display devices to/from your notebook and use the hotkey to
activate and deactivate them without restarting X.
Note that there are two approaches to implementing this hotkey support: ACPI
events and polling.
Most recent notebooks use ACPI events to deliver hotkeys from the System BIOS
to the graphics driver. This is the preferred method of delivering hotkey
events, but is still a new feature under most UNIX platforms and may not
always function correctly.
The polling mechanism requires checking during the vertical blanking interval
for a hotkey status change. It is an older mechanism for handling hotkeys, and
is therefore not supported on all notebooks and is not tested by notebook
manufacturers. It also does not always report the same combinations of display
devices that are reported by ACPI hotkey events.
The NVIDIA Linux Driver will attempt to use ACPI hotkey events, if possible.
In the case that ACPI hotkey event support is not available, the driver will
revert back to trying hotkey polling. In the case that the notebook does not
support hotkey polling, hotkeys will not work. Please see the known issues
section below for more details.
When switching away from X to a virtual terminal, the VGA console will always
be restored to the display device on which it was present when X was started.
Similarly, when switching back into X, the same display device configuration
will be used as when you switched away, regardless of what display change
hotkey activity occurred while the virtual terminal was active.
18D. DOCKING EVENTS
All notebook NVIDIA GPUs support docking, however support may be limited by
the OS or system. There are three types of notebook docking (hot, warm, and
cold), which refer to the state of the system when the docking event occurs.
hot refers to a powered on system with a live desktop, warm refers to a system
that has entered a suspended power management state, and cold refers to a
system that has been powered off. Only warm and cold docking are supported by
the NVIDIA driver.
18E. TWINVIEW
All notebook NVIDIA GPUs support TwinView. TwinView on a notebook can be
configured in the same way as on a desktop computer (refer to Chapter 13 );
note that in a TwinView configuration using the notebook's internal flat panel
and an external CRT, the CRT is the primary display device (specify its
HorizSync and VertRefresh in the Monitor section of your X config file) and
the flat panel is the secondary display device (specify its HorizSync and
VertRefresh through the SecondMonitorHorizSync and SecondMonitorVertRefresh
options).
The "UseEdidFreqs" X config option is enabled by default, so normally you
should not need to specify the "SecondMonitorHorizSync" and
"SecondMonitorVertRefresh" options. See the description of the UseEdidFreqs
option in Appendix B for details).
18F. KNOWN NOTEBOOK ISSUES
There are a few known issues associated with notebooks:
o Display change hotkey switching is not available on all notebooks. In
some cases, the ACPI infrastructure is not fully supported by the NVIDIA
Linux Driver. Work is ongoing to increase the robustness of NVIDIA's
support in this area. Toshiba and Lenovo notebooks are known to be
problematic.
o ACPI Display change hotkey switching is not supported by X.Org X servers
earlier than 1.2.0; see EnableACPIHotkeys in Appendix B for details.
o In many cases, suspending and/or resuming will fail. As mentioned above,
this functionality is very system-specific. There are still many cases
that are problematic. Here are some tips that may help:
o In some cases, hibernation can have bad interactions with the PCI
Express bus clocks, which can lead to system hangs when entering
hibernation. This issue is still being investigated, but a known
workaround is to leave an OpenGL application running when
hibernating.
o On notebooks with relatively little system memory, repetitive
hibernation attempts may fail due to insufficient free memory. This
problem can be avoided by running `echo 0 > /sys/power/image_size`,
which reduces the image size to be stored during hibernation.
o Some distributions use a tool called vbetool to save and restore VGA
adapter state. This tool is incompatible with NVIDIA GPUs' Video
BIOSes and is likely to lead to problems restoring the GPU and its
state. Disabling calls to this tool in your distribution's init
scripts may improve power management reliability.
o On some notebooks, PowerMizer is not enabled by default. This issue is
being investigated, and there is no known workaround.
o The video overlay only works on the first display device on which you
started X. For example, if you start X on the internal LCD, run a video
application that uses the video overlay (uses the "Video Overlay" adapter
advertised through the XV extension), and then hotkey switch to add a
second display device, the video will not appear on the second display
device. To work around this, you can either configure the video
application to use the "Video Blitter" adapter advertised through the XV
extension (this is always available), or hotkey switch to the display
device on which you want to use the video overlay *before* starting X.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 19. Programming Modes
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver supports all standard VGA and
VESA modes, as well as most user-written custom mode lines; double-scan modes
are supported on all hardware. Interlaced modes are supported on all GeForce
FX/Quadro FX and newer GPUs, and certain older GPUs; the X log file will
contain a message "Interlaced video modes are supported on this GPU" if
interlaced modes are supported.
To request one or more standard modes for use in X, you can simply add a
"Modes" line such as:
Modes "1600x1200" "1024x768" "640x480"
in the appropriate Display subsection of your X config file (see the
XF86Config(5x) or xorg.conf(5x) man pages for details). Or, the
nvidia-xconfig(1) utility can be used to request additional modes; for
example:
nvidia-xconfig --mode 1600x1200
See the nvidia-xconfig(1) man page for details.
19A. DEPTH, BITS PER PIXEL, AND PITCH
While not directly a concern when programming modes, the bits used per pixel
is an issue when considering the maximum programmable resolution; for this
reason, it is worthwhile to address the confusion surrounding the terms
"depth" and "bits per pixel". Depth is how many bits of data are stored per
pixel. Supported depths are 8, 15, 16, and 24. Most video hardware, however,
stores pixel data in sizes of 8, 16, or 32 bits; this is the amount of memory
allocated per pixel. When you specify your depth, X selects the bits per pixel
(bpp) size in which to store the data. Below is a table of what bpp is used
for each possible depth:
Depth BPP
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
8 8
15 16
16 16
24 32
Lastly, the "pitch" is how many bytes in the linear frame buffer there are
between one pixel's data, and the data of the pixel immediately below. You can
think of this as the horizontal resolution multiplied by the bytes per pixel
(bits per pixel divided by 8). In practice, the pitch may be more than this
product due to alignment constraints.
19B. MAXIMUM RESOLUTIONS
The NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver and NVIDIA GPU-based graphics
cards support resolutions up to 8192x8192 pixels for the GeForce 8 series and
above, and up to 4096x4096 pixels for the GeForce 7 series and below, though
the maximum resolution your system can support is also limited by the amount
of video memory (see USEFUL FORMULAS for details) and the maximum supported
resolution of your display device (monitor/flat panel/television). Also note
that while use of a video overlay does not limit the maximum resolution or
refresh rate, video memory bandwidth used by a programmed mode does affect the
overlay quality.
19C. USEFUL FORMULAS
The maximum resolution is a function both of the amount of video memory and
the bits per pixel you elect to use:
HR * VR * (bpp/8) = Video Memory Used
In other words, the amount of video memory used is equal to the horizontal
resolution (HR) multiplied by the vertical resolution (VR) multiplied by the
bytes per pixel (bits per pixel divided by eight). Technically, the video
memory used is actually the pitch times the vertical resolution, and the pitch
may be slightly greater than (HR * (bpp/8)) to accommodate the hardware
requirement that the pitch be a multiple of some value.
Note that this is just memory usage for the frame buffer; video memory is also
used by other things, such as OpenGL and pixmap caching.
Another important relationship is that between the resolution, the pixel clock
(aka dot clock) and the vertical refresh rate:
RR = PCLK / (HFL * VFL)
In other words, the refresh rate (RR) is equal to the pixel clock (PCLK)
divided by the total number of pixels: the horizontal frame length (HFL)
multiplied by the vertical frame length (VFL) (note that these are the frame
lengths, and not just the visible resolutions). As described in the XFree86
Video Timings HOWTO, the above formula can be rewritten as:
PCLK = RR * HFL * VFL
Given a maximum pixel clock, you can adjust the RR, HFL and VFL as desired, as
long as the product of the three is consistent. The pixel clock is reported in
the log file. Your X log should contain a line like this:
(--) NVIDIA(0): ViewSonic VPD150 (DFP-1): 165 MHz maximum pixel clock
which indicates the maximum pixel clock for that display device.
19D. HOW MODES ARE VALIDATED
In traditional XFree86/X.Org mode validation, the X server takes as a starting
point the X server's internal list of VESA standard modes, plus any modes
specified with special ModeLines in the X configuration file's Monitor
section. These modes are validated against criteria such as the valid
HorizSync/VertRefresh frequency ranges for the user's monitor (as specified in
the Monitor section of the X configuration file), as well as the maximum pixel
clock of the GPU.
Once the X server has determined the set of valid modes, it takes the list of
user requested modes (i.e., the set of modes named in the "Modes" line in the
Display subsection of the Screen section of X configuration file), and finds
the "best" validated mode with the requested name.
The NVIDIA X driver uses a variation on the above approach to perform mode
validation. During X server initialization, the NVIDIA X driver builds a pool
of valid modes for each display device. It gathers all possible modes from
several sources:
o The display device's EDID
o The X server's built-in list
o Any user-specified ModeLines in the X configuration file
o The VESA standard modes
For every possible mode, the mode is run through mode validation. The core of
mode validation is still performed similarly to traditional XFree86/X.Org mode
validation: the mode timings are checked against things such as the valid
HorizSync and VertRefresh ranges and the maximum pixelclock. Note that each
individual stage of mode validation can be independently controlled through
the "ModeValidation" X configuration option.
Note that when validating interlaced mode timings, VertRefresh specifies the
field rate, rather than the frame rate. For example, the following modeline
has a vertical refresh rate of 87 Hz:
# 1024x768i @ 87Hz (industry standard)
ModeLine "1024x768" 44.9 1024 1032 1208 1264 768 768 776 817 +hsync +vsync
Interlace
Invalid modes are discarded; valid modes are inserted into the mode pool. See
MODE VALIDATION REPORTING for how to get more details on mode validation
results for each considered mode.
Valid modes are given a unique name that is guaranteed to be unique across the
whole mode pool for this display device. This mode name is constructed
approximately like this:
x_
(e.g., "1600x1200_85")
The name may also be prepended with another number to ensure the mode is
unique; e.g., "1600x1200_85_0".
As validated modes are inserted into the mode pool, duplicate modes are
removed, and the mode pool is sorted, such that the "best" modes are at the
beginning of the mode pool. The sorting is based roughly on:
o Resolution
o Source (EDID-provided modes are prioritized higher than VESA-provided
modes, which are prioritized higher than modes that were in the X
server's built-in list)
o Refresh rate
Once modes from all mode sources are validated and the mode pool is
constructed, all modes with the same resolution are compared; the best mode
with that resolution is added to the mode pool a second time, using just the
resolution as its unique modename (e.g., "1600x1200"). In this way, when you
request a mode using the traditional names (e.g., "1600x1200"), you still get
what you got before (the 'best' 1600x1200 mode); the added benefit is that all
modes in the mode pool can be addressed by a unique name.
When verbose logging is enabled (see the FAQ section on increasing the amount
of data printed in the X log file), the mode pool for each display device is
printed to the X log file.
After the mode pool is built for all display devices, the requested modes (as
specified in the X configuration file), are looked up from the mode pool. Each
requested mode that can be matched against a mode in the mode pool is then
advertised to the X server and is available to the user through the X server's
mode switching hotkeys (ctrl-alt-plus/minus) and the XRandR and XF86VidMode X
extensions.
If only one display device is in use by the X screen when the X server starts,
all modes in the mode pool are implicitly made available to the X server. See
the "IncludeImplicitMetaModes" X configuration option in Appendix B for
details.
19E. THE NVIDIA-AUTO-SELECT MODE
You can request a special mode by name in the X config file, named
"nvidia-auto-select". When the X driver builds the mode pool for a display
device, it selects one of the modes as the "nvidia-auto-select" mode; a new
entry is made in the mode pool, and "nvidia-auto-select" is used as the unique
name for the mode.
The "nvidia-auto-select" mode is intended to be a reasonable mode for the
display device in question. For example, the "nvidia-auto-select" mode is
normally the native resolution for flatpanels, as reported by the flatpanel's
EDID, or one of the detailed timings from the EDID. The "nvidia-auto-select"
mode is guaranteed to always be present, and to always be defined as something
considered valid by the X driver for this display device.
Note that the "nvidia-auto-select" mode is not necessarily the largest
possible resolution, nor is it necessarily the mode with the highest refresh
rate. Rather, the "nvidia-auto-select" mode is selected such that it is a
reasonable default. The selection process is roughly:
o If the EDID for the display device reported a preferred mode timing, and
that mode timing is considered a valid mode, then that mode is used as
the "nvidia-auto-select" mode. You can check if the EDID reported a
preferred timing by starting X with logverbosity greater than or equal to
5 (see the FAQ section on increasing the amount of data printed in the X
log file), and looking at the EDID printout; if the EDID contains a line:
Prefer first detailed timing : Yes
Then the first mode listed under the "Detailed Timings" in the EDID will
be used.
o If the EDID did not provide a preferred timing, the best detailed timing
from the EDID is used as the "nvidia-auto-select" mode.
o If the EDID did not provide any detailed timings (or there was no EDID at
all), the best valid mode not larger than 1024x768 is used as the
"nvidia-auto-select" mode. The 1024x768 limit is imposed here to restrict
use of modes that may have been validated, but may be too large to be
considered a reasonable default, such as 2048x1536.
o If all else fails, the X driver will use a built-in 800 x 600 60Hz mode
as the "nvidia-auto-select" mode.
If no modes are requested in the X configuration file, or none of the
requested modes can be found in the mode pool, then the X driver falls back to
the "nvidia-auto-select" mode, so that X can always start. Appropriate warning
messages will be printed to the X log file in these fallback scenarios.
You can add the "nvidia-auto-select" mode to your X configuration file by
running the command
nvidia-xconfig --mode nvidia-auto-select
and restarting your X server.
The X driver can generally do a much better job of selecting the
"nvidia-auto-select" mode if the display device's EDID is available. This is
one reason why the "IgnoreEDID" X configuration option has been deprecated,
and that it is recommended to only use the "UseEDID" X configuration option
sparingly. Note that, rather than globally disable all uses of the EDID with
the "UseEDID" option, you can individually disable each particular use of the
EDID using the "UseEDIDFreqs", "UseEDIDDpi", and/or the "NoEDIDModes" argument
in the "ModeValidation" X configuration option.
19F. MODE VALIDATION REPORTING
When log verbosity is set to 6 or higher (see FAQ
section on increasing the amount of data printed in the X log file), the X log
will record every mode that is considered for each display device's mode pool,
and report whether the mode passed or failed. For modes that were considered
invalid, the log will report why the mode was considered invalid.
19G. ENSURING IDENTICAL MODE TIMINGS
Some functionality, such as Active Stereo with TwinView, requires control over
exactly which mode timings are used. For explicit control over which mode
timings are used on each display device, you can specify the ModeLine you want
to use (using one of the ModeLine generators available), and using a unique
name. For example, if you wanted to use 1024x768 at 120 Hz on each monitor in
TwinView with active stereo, you might add something like this to the monitor
section of your X configuration file:
# 1024x768 @ 120.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 98.76 kHz; pclk: 139.05 MHz
Modeline "1024x768_120" 139.05 1024 1104 1216 1408 768 769 772 823
-HSync +Vsync
Then, in the Screen section of your X config file, specify a MetaMode like
this:
Option "MetaModes" "1024x768_120, 1024x768_120"
19H. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
An XFree86 ModeLine generator, conforming to the GTF Standard is available at
http://gtf.sourceforge.net/. Additional generators can be found by searching
for "modeline" on freshmeat.net.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 20. Configuring Flipping and UBB
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver supports Unified Back Buffer
(UBB) and OpenGL Flipping. These features can provide performance gains in
certain situations.
o Unified Back Buffer (UBB): UBB is available only on the Quadro family of
GPUs (Quadro4 NVS excluded) and is enabled by default when there is
sufficient video memory available. This can be disabled with the UBB X
config option described in Appendix B. When UBB is enabled, all windows
share the same back, stencil and depth buffers. When there are many
windows, the back, stencil and depth usage will never exceed the size of
that used by a full screen window. However, even for a single small
window, the back, stencil, and depth video memory usage is that of a full
screen window. In that case video memory may be used less efficiently
than in the non-UBB case.
o Flipping: When OpenGL flipping is enabled, OpenGL can perform buffer
swaps by changing which buffer the DAC scans out rather than copying the
back buffer contents to the front buffer; this is generally a much higher
performance mechanism and allows tearless swapping during the vertical
retrace (when __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK is set). The conditions under which
OpenGL can flip are slightly complicated, but in general: on GeForce or
newer hardware, OpenGL can flip when a single full screen unobscured
OpenGL application is running, and __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK is enabled.
Additionally, OpenGL can flip on Quadro hardware even when an OpenGL
window is partially obscured or not full screen or __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK is
not enabled.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 21. Using the Proc Filesystem Interface
______________________________________________________________________________
You can use the /proc filesystem interface to obtain run-time information
about the driver, any installed NVIDIA graphics cards, and the AGP status.
This information is contained in several files in /proc/driver/nvidia
/proc/driver/nvidia/version
Lists the installed driver revision and the version of the GNU C compiler
used to build the Linux kernel module.
/proc/driver/nvidia/warnings
The NVIDIA graphics driver tries to detect potential problems with the
host system's kernel and warns about them using the kernel's printk()
mechanism, typically logged by the system to '/var/log/messages'.
Important NVIDIA warning messages are also logged to dedicated text files
in this /proc directory.
/proc/driver/nvidia/cards/0...3
Provide information about each of the installed NVIDIA graphics adapters
(model name, IRQ, BIOS version, Bus Type). Note that the BIOS version is
only available while X is running.
/proc/driver/nvidia/agp/card
Information about the installed AGP card's AGP capabilities.
/proc/driver/nvidia/agp/host-bridge
Information about the host bridge (model and AGP capabilities).
/proc/driver/nvidia/agp/status
The current AGP status. If AGP support has been enabled on your system,
the AGP driver being used, the AGP rate, and information about the status
of AGP Fast Writes and Side Band Addressing is shown.
The AGP driver is either NVIDIA (NVIDIA built-in AGP driver) or AGPGART
(the Linux kernel's agpgart.o driver). If you see "inactive" next to
AGPGART, then this means that the AGP chipset was programmed by AGPGART,
but is not currently in use.
SBA and Fast Writes indicate whether either one of these features is
currently in use. Note that several factors determine whether support for
either will be enabled. Even if both the AGP card and the host bridge
support them, the driver may decide not to use these features in favor of
system stability. This is particularly true of AGP Fast Writes.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 22. Configuring Power Management Support
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA driver includes support for both APM- and ACPI- based power
management. The NVIDIA Linux driver supports APM-based suspend and resume, as
well as ACPI standby (S3) and suspend (S4).
To use APM, your system's BIOS will need to support APM, rather than ACPI.
Many, but not all, of the GeForce2- and GeForce4-based notebooks include APM
support. You can check for APM support via the procfs interface (check for the
existence of /proc/apm) or via the kernel's boot output:
% dmesg | grep -i apm
a message similar to this indicates APM support:
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16)
or a message like this indicates no APM support:
No APM support in Kernel
Note: If you are using Linux kernel 2.6 and your kernel was configured with
support for both ACPI and APM, the NVIDIA kernel module will be built with
ACPI Power Management support. If you wish to use APM, you will need to
rebuild the Linux kernel without ACPI support and reinstall the NVIDIA Linux
graphics driver.
Sometimes chipsets lose their AGP configuration during suspend, and may cause
corruption on the bus upon resume. The AGP driver is required to save and
restore relevant register state on such systems; NVIDIA's NvAGP is notified of
power management events and ensures its configuration is kept intact across
suspend/resume cycles.
Linux 2.4 AGPGART does not support power management, Linux 2.6 AGPGART does,
but only for a few select chipsets. If you use either of these two AGP drivers
and find your system fails to resume reliably, you may have more success with
the NvAGP driver.
Disabling AGP support (see Chapter 12 for more details on disabling AGP) will
also work around this problem.
More recent systems are more likely to support ACPI. ACPI is supported by the
NVIDIA graphics driver in 2.6 and newer kernels. The driver supports ACPI
standby (S3) and includes beta support for ACPI suspend (S4).
If you enable ACPI S4 support via suspend2 patches, you will need to tweak the
Linux kernel such that it dynamically determines the amount of pages needed by
the drivers that will be suspended in the system. This is done by issuing the
following command as root:
% echo 0 > /sys/power/suspend2/extra_pages_allowance
Older versions of suspend2 may provide a different interface, in which case
the following command needs to be issued as root:
% echo 0 > /proc/suspend2/extra_pages_allowance
The system does NOT need rebooting, and as a matter of fact, the setting is
volatile over reboots. You will need to include the tweak in your startup
scripts. However, failure to perform the tweak will result in a hang going to
sleep. For further information regarding suspend2 patches, see
http://www.suspend2.net/.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 23. Using the X Composite Extension
______________________________________________________________________________
X.Org X servers, beginning with X11R6.8.0, contain experimental support for a
new X protocol extension called Composite. This extension allows windows to be
drawn into pixmaps instead of directly onto the screen. In conjunction with
the Damage and Render extensions, this allows a program called a composite
manager to blend windows together to draw the screen.
Performance will be degraded significantly if the "RenderAccel" option is
disabled in xorg.conf. See Appendix B for more details.
When the NVIDIA X driver is used with an X.Org X server X11R6.9.0 or newer and
the Composite extension is enabled, NVIDIA's OpenGL implementation interacts
properly with the Damage and Composite X extensions. This means that OpenGL
rendering is drawn into offscreen pixmaps and the X server is notified of the
Damage event when OpenGL renders to the pixmap. This allows OpenGL
applications to behave properly in a composited X desktop.
If the Composite extension is enabled on an X server older than X11R6.9.0,
then GLX will be disabled. You can force GLX on while Composite is enabled on
pre-X11R6.9.0 X servers with the "AllowGLXWithComposite" X configuration
option. However, GLX will not render correctly in this environment. Upgrading
your X server to X11R6.9.0 or newer is recommended.
You can enable the Composite X extension by running 'nvidia-xconfig
--composite'. Composite can be disabled with 'nvidia-xconfig --no-composite'.
See the nvidia-xconfig(1) man page for details.
If you are using Composite with GLX, it is recommended that you also enable
the "DamageEvents" X option for enhanced performance. If you are using an
OpenGL-based composite manager, you may also need the "DisableGLXRootClipping"
option to obtain proper output.
The Composite extension also causes problems with other driver components:
o In X servers prior to X.Org 7.1, Xv cannot draw into pixmaps that have
been redirected offscreen and will draw directly onto the screen instead.
For some programs you can work around this issue by using an alternative
video driver. For example, "mplayer -vo x11" will work correctly, as will
"xine -V xshm". If you must use Xv with an older server, you can also
disable the compositing manager and re-enable it when you are finished.
On X.Org 7.1 and higher, the driver will properly redirect video into
offscreen pixmaps. Note that the Xv adaptors will ignore the
sync-to-vblank option when drawing into a redirected window.
o Workstation overlays, stereo visuals, and the unified back buffer (UBB)
are incompatible with Composite. These features will be automatically
disabled when Composite is detected.
This NVIDIA Linux supports OpenGL rendering to 32-bit ARGB windows on X.Org
7.2 and higher or when the "AddARGBGLXVisuals" X config file option is
enabled. If you are an application developer, you can use these new visuals in
conjunction with a composite manager to create translucent OpenGL
applications:
int attrib[] = {
GLX_RENDER_TYPE, GLX_RGBA_BIT,
GLX_DRAWABLE_TYPE, GLX_WINDOW_BIT,
GLX_RED_SIZE, 1,
GLX_GREEN_SIZE, 1,
GLX_BLUE_SIZE, 1,
GLX_ALPHA_SIZE, 1,
GLX_DOUBLEBUFFER, True,
GLX_DEPTH_SIZE, 1,
None };
GLXFBConfig *fbconfigs, fbconfig;
int numfbconfigs, render_event_base, render_error_base;
XVisualInfo *visinfo;
XRenderPictFormat *pictFormat;
/* Make sure we have the RENDER extension */
if(!XRenderQueryExtension(dpy, &render_event_base, &render_error_base)) {
fprintf(stderr, "No RENDER extension found\n");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
/* Get the list of FBConfigs that match our criteria */
fbconfigs = glXChooseFBConfig(dpy, scrnum, attrib, &numfbconfigs);
if (!fbconfigs) {
/* None matched */
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
/* Find an FBConfig with a visual that has a RENDER picture format that
* has alpha */
for (i = 0; i < numfbconfigs; i++) {
visinfo = glXGetVisualFromFBConfig(dpy, fbconfigs[i]);
if (!visinfo) continue;
pictFormat = XRenderFindVisualFormat(dpy, visinfo->visual);
if (!pictFormat) continue;
if(pictFormat->direct.alphaMask > 0) {
fbconfig = fbconfigs[i];
break;
}
XFree(visinfo);
}
if (i == numfbconfigs) {
/* None of the FBConfigs have alpha. Use a normal (opaque)
* FBConfig instead */
fbconfig = fbconfigs[0];
visinfo = glXGetVisualFromFBConfig(dpy, fbconfig);
pictFormat = XRenderFindVisualFormat(dpy, visinfo->visual);
}
XFree(fbconfigs);
When rendering to a 32-bit window, keep in mind that the X RENDER extension,
used by most composite managers, expects "premultiplied alpha" colors. This
means that if your color has components (r,g,b) and alpha value a, then you
must render (a*r, a*g, a*b, a) into the target window.
More information about Composite can be found at
http://freedesktop.org/Software/CompositeExt
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 24. Using the nvidia-settings Utility
______________________________________________________________________________
A graphical configuration utility, 'nvidia-settings', is included with the
NVIDIA Linux graphics driver. After installing the driver and starting X, you
can run this configuration utility by running:
% nvidia-settings
in a terminal window.
Detailed information about the configuration options available are documented
in the help window in the utility.
For more information, see the nvidia-settings man page.
The source code to nvidia-settings is released as GPL and is available here:
ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-settings/
If you have trouble running the nvidia-settings binary shipped with the NVIDIA
Linux Graphics Driver, refer to the nvidia-settings entry in Chapter 8.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 25. Configuring SLI and Multi-GPU FrameRendering
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA Linux driver contains support for NVIDIA SLI FrameRendering and
NVIDIA Multi-GPU FrameRendering. Both of these technologies allow an OpenGL
application to take advantage of multiple GPUs to improve visual performance.
The distinction between SLI and Multi-GPU is straightforward. SLI is used to
leverage the processing power of GPUs across two or more graphics cards, while
Multi-GPU is used to leverage the processing power of two GPUs colocated on
the same graphics card. If you want to link together separate graphics cards,
you should use the "SLI" X config option. Likewise, if you want to link
together GPUs on the same graphics card, you should use the "MultiGPU" X
config option. If you have two cards, each with two GPUs, and you wish to link
them all together, you should use the "SLI" option.
In Linux, with two GPUs SLI and Multi-GPU can both operate in one of three
modes: Alternate Frame Rendering (AFR), Split Frame Rendering (SFR), and
Antialiasing (AA). When AFR mode is active, one GPU draws the next frame while
the other one works on the frame after that. In SFR mode, each frame is split
horizontally into two pieces, with one GPU rendering each piece. The split
line is adjusted to balance the load between the two GPUs. AA mode splits
antialiasing work between the two GPUs. Both GPUs work on the same scene and
the result is blended together to produce the final frame. This mode is useful
for applications that spend most of their time processing with the CPU and
cannot benefit from AFR.
With four GPUs, the same options are applicable. AFR mode cycles through all
four GPUs, each GPU rendering a frame in turn. SFR mode splits the frame
horizontally into four pieces. AA mode splits the work between the four GPUs,
allowing antialiasing up to 64x. With four GPUs SLI can also operate in an
additional mode, Alternate Frame Rendering of Antialiasing. (AFR of AA). With
AFR of AA, pairs of GPUs render alternate frames, each GPU in a pair doing
half of the antialiasing work. Note that these scenarios apply whether you
have four separate cards or you have two cards, each with two GPUs.
Multi-GPU is enabled by setting the "MultiGPU" option in the X configuration
file; see Appendix B for details about the "MultiGPU" option.
The nvidia-xconfig utility can be used to set the "MultiGPU" option, rather
than modifying the X configuration file by hand. For example:
% nvidia-xconfig --multigpu=on
SLI is enabled by setting the "SLI" option in the X configuration file; see
Appendix B for details about the SLI option.
The nvidia-xconfig utility can be used to set the SLI option, rather than
modifying the X configuration file by hand. For example:
% nvidia-xconfig --sli=on
25A. HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
SLI functionality requires:
o Identical PCI-Express graphics cards
o A supported motherboard
o In most cases, a video bridge connecting the two graphics cards
For the latest in supported SLI and Multi-GPU configurations, including SLI-
and Multi-GPU capable GPUs and SLI-capable motherboards, see
http://www.slizone.com.
25B. OTHER NOTES AND REQUIREMENTS
The following other requirements apply to SLI and Multi-GPU:
o Mobile GPUs are NOT supported
o SLI on Quadro-based graphics cards always requires a video bridge
o TwinView is also not supported with SLI or Multi-GPU. Only one display
can be used when SLI or Multi-GPU is enabled.
o If X is configured to use multiple screens and screen 0 has SLI or
Multi-GPU enabled, the other screens will be disabled. Note that if SLI
or Multi-GPU is enabled, the GPUs used by that configuration will be
unavailable for single GPU rendering.
FREQUENTLY ASKED SLI AND MULTI-GPU QUESTIONS
Q. Why is glxgears slower when SLI or Multi-GPU is enabled?
A. When SLI or Multi-GPU is enabled, the NVIDIA driver must coordinate the
operations of all GPUs when each new frame is swapped (made visible). For
most applications, this GPU synchronization overhead is negligible.
However, because glxgears renders so many frames per second, the GPU
synchronization overhead consumes a significant portion of the total time,
and the framerate is reduced.
Q. Why is Doom 3 slower when SLI or Multi-GPU is enabled?
A. The NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver does not automatically detect
the optimal SLI or Multi-GPU settings for games such as Doom 3 and Quake 4.
To work around this issue, the environment variable __GL_DOOM3 can be set
to tell OpenGL that Doom 3's optimal settings should be used. In Bash, this
can be done in the same command that launches Doom 3 so the environment
variable does not remain set for other OpenGL applications started in the
same session:
% __GL_DOOM3=1 doom3
Doom 3's startup script can also be modified to set this environment
variable:
#!/bin/sh
# Needed to make symlinks/shortcuts work.
# the binaries must run with correct working directory
cd "/usr/local/games/doom3/"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:.
export __GL_DOOM3=1
exec ./doom.x86 "$@"
This environment variable is temporary and will be removed in the future.
Q. Why does SLI or MultiGPU fail to initialize?
A. There are several reasons why SLI or MultiGPU may fail to initialize. Most
of these should be clear from the warning message in the X log file; e.g.:
o "Unsupported bus type"
o "The video link was not detected"
o "GPUs do not match"
o "Unsupported GPU video BIOS"
o "Insufficient PCI-E link width"
The warning message "'Unsupported PCI topology'" is likely due to problems
with your Linux kernel. The NVIDIA driver must have access to the PCI
Bridge (often called the Root Bridge) that each NVIDIA GPU is connected to
in order to configure SLI or MultiGPU correctly. There are many kernels
that do not properly recognize this bridge and, as a result, do not allow
the NVIDIA driver to access this bridge. See the below "How can I determine
if my kernel correctly detects my PCI Bridge?" FAQ for details.
Below are some specific troubleshooting steps to help deal with SLI and
MultiGPU initialization failures.
o Make sure that ACPI is enabled in your kernel. NVIDIA's experience
has been that ACPI is needed for the kernel to correctly recognize
the Root Bridge. Note that in some cases, the kernel's version of
ACPI may still have problems and require an update to a newer kernel.
o Run 'lspci' to check that multiple NVIDIA GPUs can be identified by
the operating system; e.g:
% /sbin/lspci | grep -i nvidia
If 'lspci' does not report all the GPUs that are in your system, then
this is a problem with your Linux kernel, and it is recommended that
you use a different kernel.
o Make sure you have the most recent SBIOS available for your
motherboard.
o The PCI-Express slots on the motherboard must provide a minimum link
width. Please make sure that the PCI Express slot(s) on your
motherboard meet the following requirements and that you have
connected the graphics board to the correct PCI Express slot(s):
o A dual-GPU board needs a minimum of 8 lanes (i.e. x8 or x16)
o A pair of single-GPU boards requires one of the following
supported link width combinations:
o x16 + x16
o x16 + x8
o x16 + x4
o x8 + x8
Q. How can I determine if my kernel correctly detects my PCI Bridge?
A. As discussed above, the NVIDIA driver must have access to the PCI Bridge
that each NVIDIA GPU is connected to in order to configure SLI or MultiGPU
correctly. The following steps will identify whether the kernel correctly
recognizes the PCI Bridge:
o Identify both NVIDIA GPUs:
% /sbin/lspci | grep -i vga
0a:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation [...]
81:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation [...]
o Verify that each GPU is connected to a bus connected to the Root
Bridge (note that the GPUs in the above example are on buses 0a and
81):
% /sbin/lspci -t
good:
-+-[0000:80]-+-00.0
| +-01.0
| \-0e.0-[0000:81]----00.0
...
\-[0000:00]-+-00.0
+-01.0
+-01.1
+-0e.0-[0000:0a]----00.0
bad:
-+-[0000:81]---00.0
...
\-[0000:00]-+-00.0
+-01.0
+-01.1
+-0e.0-[0000:0a]----00.0
Note that in the first example, bus 81 is connected to Root Bridge
80, but that in the second example there is no Root Bridge 80 and bus
81 is incorrectly connected at the base of the device tree. In the
bad case, the only solution is to upgrade your kernel to one that
properly detects your PCI bus layout.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 26. Configuring Frame Lock and Genlock
______________________________________________________________________________
NOTE: Frame Lock and Genlock features are supported only on specific hardware,
as noted below.
Visual computing applications that involve multiple displays, or even multiple
windows within a display, can require special signal processing and
application controls in order to function properly. For example, in order to
produce quality video recording of animated graphics, the graphics display
must be synchronized with the video camera. As another example, applications
presented on multiple displays must be synchronized in order to complete the
illusion of a larger, virtual canvas.
This synchronization is enabled through the frame lock and genlock
capabilities of the NVIDIA driver. This section describes the setup and use of
frame lock and genlock.
26A. DEFINITION OF TERMS
GENLOCK: Genlock refers to the process of synchronizing the pixel scanning of
one or more displays to an external synchronization source. NVIDIA Genlock
requires the external signal to be either TTL or composite, such as used for
NTSC, PAL, or HDTV. It should be noted that the NVIDIA Genlock implementation
is guaranteed only to be frame-synchronized, and not necessarily
pixel-synchronized.
FRAME LOCK: Frame Lock involves the use of hardware to synchronize the frames
on each display in a connected system. When graphics and video are displayed
across multiple monitors, frame locked systems help maintain image continuity
to create a virtual canvas. Frame lock is especially critical for stereo
viewing, where the left and right fields must be in sync across all displays.
In short, to enable genlock means to sync to an external signal. To enable
frame lock means to sync 2 or more display devices to a signal generated
internally by the hardware, and to use both means to sync 2 or more display
devices to an external signal.
SWAP SYNC: Swap sync refers to the synchronization of buffer swaps of multiple
application windows. By means of swap sync, applications running on multiple
systems can synchronize the application buffer swaps between all the systems.
In order to work across multiple systems, swap sync requires that the systems
are frame locked.
G-SYNC DEVICE: A G-Sync Device refers to devices capable of Frame
lock/Genlock. This can be a graphics card (Quadro FX 3000G) or a stand alone
device (Quadro FX G-Sync). See "Supported Hardware" below.
26B. SUPPORTED HARDWARE
Frame lock and genlock are supported for the following hardware:
Card
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Quadro FX 3000G
Quadro FX G-Sync, used in conjunction with a Quadro FX 4400, Quadro FX
4500, or Quadro FX 5500
Quadro FX G-Sync II, used in conjunction with a Quadro FX 4600, or Quadro
FX 5600
26C. HARDWARE SETUP
Before you begin, you should check that your hardware has been properly
installed. If you are using the Quadro FX 3000G, the genlock/frame lock signal
processing hardware is located on the dual-slot card itself, and after
installing the card, no additional setup is necessary.
If you are using the Quadro FX G-Sync card in conjunction with a graphics
card, the following additional setup steps are required. These steps must be
performed when the system is off.
1. On the Quadro FX G-Sync card, locate the fourteen-pin connector labeled
"primary". If the associated ribbon cable is not already joined to this
connector, do so now. If you plan to use frame lock or genlock in
conjunction with SLI FrameRendering or Multi-GPU FrameRendering (see
Chapter 25) or other multi-GPU configurations, you should connect the
fourteen-pin connector labeled "secondary" to the second GPU. A section
at the end of this appendix describes restrictions on such setups.
2. Install the Quadro FX G-Sync card in any available slot. Note that the
slot itself is only used for support, so even a known "bad" slot is
acceptable. The slot must be close enough to the graphics card that the
ribbon cable can reach.
3. Connect the other end of the ribbon cable to the fourteen-pin connector
on the graphics card.
You may now boot the system and begin the software setup of genlock and/or
frame lock. These instructions assume that you have already successfully
installed the NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Driver Set. If you have not done so,
see Chapter 4.
26D. CONFIGURATION WITH NVIDIA-SETTINGS GUI
Frame lock and genlock are configured through the nvidia-settings utility. See
the 'nvidia-settings(1)' man page, and the nvidia-settings online help (click
the "Help" button in the lower right corner of the interface for per-page help
information).
From the nvidia-settings frame lock panel, you may control the addition of
G-Sync (and display) devices to the frame lock/genlock group, monitor the
status of that group, and enable/disable frame lock and genlock.
After the system has booted and X Windows has been started, run
nvidia-settings as
% nvidia-settings
You may wish to start this utility before continuing, as we refer to it
frequently in the subsequent discussion.
The setup of genlock and frame lock are described separately. We then describe
the use of genlock and frame lock together.
26E. GENLOCK SETUP
After the system has been booted, connect the external signal to the house
sync connector (the BNC connector) on either the graphics card or the G-Sync
card. There is a status LED next to the connector. A solid red LED indicates
that the hardware cannot detect the timing signal. A green LED indicates that
the hardware is detecting a timing signal. An occasional red flash is okay.
The G-Sync device (graphics card or G-Sync card) will need to be configured
correctly for the signal to be detected.
In the frame lock panel of the nvidia-settings interface, add the X Server
that contains the display and G-Sync devices that you would like to sync to
this external source by clicking the "Add Devices..." button. An X Server is
typically specified in the format "system:m", e.g.:
mycomputer.domain.com:0
or
localhost:0
After adding an X Server, rows will appear in the "G-Sync Devices" section on
the frame lock panel that displays relevant status information about the
G-Sync devices, GPUs attached to those G-Sync devices and the display devices
driven by those GPUs. In particular, the G-Sync rows will display the server
name and G-Sync device number along with "Receiving" LED, "Rate", "House" LED,
"Port0"/"Port1" Images, and "Delay" information. The GPU rows will display the
GPU product name information along with the GPU ID for the server. The Display
Device rows will show the display device name and device type along with
server/client checkboxes, refresh rate, "Timing" LED and "Stereo" LED.
Once the G-Sync and display devices have been added to the frame lock/genlock
group, a Server display device will need to be selected. This is done by
selecting the "Server" checkbox of the desired display device.
If you are using a G-Sync card, you must also click the "Use House Sync if
Present" checkbox. To enable synchronization of this G-Sync device to the
external source, click the "Enable Frame Lock" button. The display device(s)
may take a moment to stabilize. If it does not stabilize, you may have
selected a synchronization signal that the system cannot support. You should
disable synchronization by clicking the "Disable Frame Lock" button and check
the external sync signal.
Modifications to genlock settings (e.g., "Use House Sync if Present", "Add
Devices...") must be done while synchronization is disabled.
26F. FRAME LOCK SETUP
Frame Lock is supported across an arbitrary number of Quadro FX 3000 or Quadro
FX G-Sync systems, although mixing the two in the same frame lock group is not
supported. Additionally, each system to be included in the frame lock group
must be configured with identical mode timings. See Chapter 19 for information
on mode timings.
Connect the systems through their RJ45 ports using standard CAT5 patch cables.
These ports are located on the frame lock card itself (either the Quadro FX
3000 or the Quadro FX G-Sync card). DO NOT CONNECT A FRAME LOCK PORT TO AN
ETHERNET CARD OR HUB. DOING SO MAY PERMANENTLY DAMAGE THE HARDWARE. The
connections should be made in a daisy-chain fashion: each card has two RJ45
ports, call them 1 and 2. Connect port 1 of system A to port 2 of system B,
connect port 1 of system B to port 2 of system C, etc. Note that you will
always have two empty ports in your frame lock group.
The ports self-configure as inputs or outputs once frame lock is enabled. Each
port has a yellow and a green LED that reflect this state. A flashing yellow
LED indicates an output and a flashing green LED indicates an input. A solid
green LED indicates that the port has not yet configured.
In the frame lock panel of the nvidia-settings interface, add the X server
that contains the display devices that you would like to include in the frame
lock group by clicking the "Add Devices..." button (see the description for
adding display devices in the previous section on GENLOCK SETUP. Like the
genlock status indicators, the "Port0" and "Port1" columns in the table on the
frame lock panel contain indicators whose states mirror the states of the
physical LEDs on the RJ45 ports. Thus, you may monitor the status of these
ports from the software interface.
Any X Server can be added to the frame lock group, provided that
1. The system supporting the X Server is configured to support frame lock
and is connected via RJ45 cable to the other systems in the frame lock
group.
2. The system driving nvidia-settings can locate and has display privileges
on the X server that is to be included for frame lock.
A system can gain display privileges on a remote system by executing
% xhost +
on the remote system. See the xhost(1) man page for details. Typically, frame
lock is controlled through one of the systems that will be included in the
frame lock group. While this is not a requirement, note that nvidia-settings
will only display the frame lock panel when running on an X server that
supports frame lock.
To enable synchronization on these display devices, click the "Enable Frame
Lock" button. The screens may take a moment to stabilize. If they do not
stabilize, you may have selected mode timings that one or more of the systems
cannot support. In this case you should disable synchronization by clicking
the "Disable Frame Lock" button and refer to Chapter 19 for information on
mode timings.
Modifications to frame lock settings (e.g. "Add/Remove Devices...") must be
done while synchronization is disabled.
26G. FRAME LOCK + GENLOCK
The use of frame lock and genlock together is a simple extension of the above
instructions for using them separately. You should first follow the
instructions for Frame Lock Setup, and then to one of the systems that will be
included in the frame lock group, attach an external sync source. In order to
sync the frame lock group to this single external source, you must select a
display device driven by the GPU connected to the G-Sync card (through the
primary connector) that is connected to the external source to be the signal
server for the group. This is done by selecting the checkbox labeled "Server"
of the tree on the frame lock panel in nvidia-settings. If you are using a
G-Sync based frame lock group, you must also select the "Use House Sync if
Present" checkbox. Enable synchronization by clicking the "Enable Frame Lock"
button. As with other frame lock/genlock controls, you must select the signal
server while synchronization is disabled.
26H. CONFIGURATION WITH NVIDIA-SETTINGS COMMAND LINE
Frame Lock may also be configured through the nvidia-settings command line.
This method of configuring Frame Lock may be useful in a scripted environment
to automate the setup process. (Note that the examples listed below depend on
the actual hardware configuration and as such may not work as-is.)
To properly configure Frame Lock, the following steps should be completed:
1. Make sure Frame Lock Sync is disabled on all GPUs.
2. Make sure all display devices that are to be frame locked have the same
refresh rate.
3. Configure which (display/GPU) device should be the master.
4. Configure house sync (if applicable).
5. Configure the slave display devices.
6. Enable frame lock sync on the master GPU.
7. Enable frame lock sync on the slave GPUs.
8. Toggle the test signal on the master GPU (for testing the hardware
connectivity.)
For a full list of the nvidia-settings Frame Lock attributes, please see the
'nvidia-settings(1)' man page. Examples:
1. 1 System, 1 Frame Lock board, 1 GPU, and 1 display device syncing to the
house signal:
# - Make sure frame lock sync is disabled
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable
# - Query the enabled displays on the gpu
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/EnabledDisplays
# - Check that the refresh rate is the one we want
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/RefreshRate
# - Set the master display device to CRT-0. The desired display
# device(s) to be set are passed in as a hexadecimal number
# in which specific bits denote which display devices to set.
# examples:
#
# 0x00000001 - CRT-0
# 0x00000002 - CRT-1
# 0x00000003 - CRT-0 and CRT-1
#
# 0x00000100 - TV-0
# 0x00000200 - TV-1
#
# 0x00020000 - DFP-1
#
# 0x00010101 - CRT-0, TV-0 and DFP-0
#
# 0x000000FF - All CRTs
# 0x0000FF00 - All TVs
# 0x00FF0000 - All DFPs
#
# Note that the following command:
#
# nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/EnabledDisplays
#
# will list the available displays on the given GPU.
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockMaster=0x00000001
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/FrameLockMaster
# - Enable use of house sync signal
nvidia-settings -a [framelock:0]/FrameLockUseHouseSync=1
# - Configure the house sync signal video mode
nvidia-settings -a [framelock:0]/FrameLockVideoMode=0
# - Set the slave display device to none (to avoid
# having unwanted display devices locked to the
# sync signal.)
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000000
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/FrameLockSlaves
# - Enable framelocking
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=1
# - Toggle the test signal
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=0
2. 2 Systems, each with 2 GPUs, 1 Frame Lock board and 1 display device per
GPU syncing from the first system's first display device:
# - Make sure frame lock sync is disabled
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=0
# - Query the enabled displays on the GPUs
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:0]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:1]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q myslave1:0[gpu:0]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q myslave1:0[gpu:1]/EnabledDisplays
# - Check the refresh rate is the same for all displays
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:0]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:1]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q myslave1:0[gpu:0]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q myslave1:0[gpu:1]/RefreshRate
# - Make sure the display device we want as master is masterable
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockMasterable
# - Set the master display device (CRT-0)
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockMaster=0x00000001
# - Disable the house sync signal on the master device
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[framelock:0]/FrameLockUseHouseSync=0
# - Set the slave display devices
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000001
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000001
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000001
# - Enable framelocking on server
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=1
# - Enable framelocking on slave devices
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=1
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=1
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=1
# - Toggle the test signal
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=1
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=0
3. 1 System, 4 GPUs, 2 Frame Lock boards and 2 display devices per GPU
syncing from the first GPU's display device:
# - Make sure frame lock sync is disabled
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:2]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:3]/FrameLockEnable=0
# - Query the enabled displays on the GPUs
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:1]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:2]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:3]/EnabledDisplays
# - Check the refresh rate is the same for all displays
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:1]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:2]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:3]/RefreshRate
# - Make sure the display device we want as master is masterable
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockMasterable
# - Set the master display device (CRT-0)
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockMaster=0x00000001
# - Disable the house sync signal on the master device
nvidia-settings -a [framelock:0]/FrameLockUseHouseSync=1
# - Set the slave display devices
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000002 # CRT-1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:1]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000003 # CRT-0 and CRT-1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:2]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000003 # CRT-0 and CRT-1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:3]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000003 # CRT-0 and CRT-1
# - Enable framelocking on master GPU
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=1
# - Enable framelocking on slave devices
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:2]/FrameLockEnable=1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:3]/FrameLockEnable=1
# - Toggle the test signal
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=0
26I. LEVERAGING FRAME LOCK/GENLOCK IN OPENGL
With the GLX_NV_swap_group extension, OpenGL applications can be implemented
to join a group of applications within a system for local swap sync, and bind
the group to a barrier for swap sync across a frame lock group. A universal
frame counter is also provided to promote synchronization across applications.
26J. FRAME LOCK RESTRICTIONS:
The following restrictions must be met for enabling frame lock:
1. All display devices set as client in a frame lock group must have the
same mode timings as the server (master) display device. If a House Sync
signal is used (instead of internal timings), all client display devices
must be set to have the same refresh rate as the incoming house sync
signal.
2. All X Screens (driving the selected client/server display devices) must
have the same stereo setting. See Appendix B for instructions on how to
set the stereo X option.
3. The frame lock server (master) display device must be on a GPU on the
primary connector to a G-Sync device.
4. If connecting a single GPU to a G-Sync device, the primary connector must
be used.
5. In configurations with more than one display device per GPU, we recommend
enabling frame lock on all display devices on those GPUs.
6. VT-switching or mdoe-switching will disable frame lock on the display
device. Note that the glXQueryFrameCountNV entry point (provided by the
GLX_NV_swap_group extension) will only provide incrementing numbers while
frame lock is enabled. Therefore, applications that use
glXQueryFrameCountNV to control animation will appear to stop animating
while frame lock is disabled.
26K. SUPPORTED FRAME LOCK CONFIGURATIONS:
The following configurations are currently supported:
1. Basic Frame Lock: Single GPU, Single X Screen, Single Display Device with
or without OpenGL applications that make use of Quad-Buffered Stereo
and/or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension.
2. Frame Lock + TwinView: Single GPU, Single X Screen, Multiple Display
Devices with or without OpenGL applications that make use of
Quad-Buffered Stereo and/or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension.
3. Frame Lock + Xinerama: 1 or more GPU(s), Multiple X Screens, Multiple
Display Devices with or without OpenGL applications that make use of
Quad-Buffered Stereo and/or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension.
4. Frame Lock + TwinView + Xinerama: 1 or more GPU(s), Multiple X Screens,
Multiple Display Devices with or without OpenGL applications that make
use of Quad-Buffered Stereo and/or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension.
5. Frame Lock + SLI SFR, AFR, or AA: 2 GPUs, Single X Screen, Single Display
Device with either OpenGL applications that make use of Quad-Buffered
Stereo or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension. Note that for Frame Lock + SLI
Frame Rendering applications that make use of both Quad-Buffered Stereo
and the GLX_NV_swap_group extension are not supported. Note that only
2-GPU SLI configurations are currently supported.
6. Frame Lock + Multi-GPU SFR, AFR, or AA: 2 GPUs, Single X Screen, Single
Display Device with either OpenGL applications that make use of
Quad-Buffered Stereo or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension. Note that for
Frame Lock + Multi-GPU Frame Rendering applications that make use of both
Quad-Buffered Stereo and the GLX_NV_swap_group extension are not
supported.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 27. Configuring SDI Video Output
______________________________________________________________________________
Broadcast, film, and video post production and digital cinema applications can
require Serial Digital (SDI) or High Definition Serial Digital (HD-SDI) video
output. SDI/HD-SDI is a digital video interface used for the transmission of
uncompressed video signals as well as packetized data. SDI is standardized in
ITU-R BT.656 and SMPTE 259M while HD-SDI is standardized in SMPTE 292M. SMPTE
372M extends HD-SDI to define a dual-link configuration that uses a pair of
SMPTE 292M links to provide a 2.970 Gbit/sec interface. SMPTE 424M extends the
interface further to define a single 2.97 Gbit/sec serial data link.
SDI and HD-SDI video output is provided through the use of the NVIDIA driver
along with an NVIDIA SDI output daughter board. In addition to single- and
dual-link SDI/HD-SDI digital video output, frame lock and genlock
synchronization are provided in order to synchronize the outgoing video with
an external source signal (see Chapter 26 for details on these technologies).
This section describes the setup and use of the SDI video output.
27A. HARDWARE SETUP
Before you begin, you should check that your hardware has been properly
installed. If you are using the Quadro FX 4000SDI, the SDI/HD-SDI hardware is
located on the dual-slot card itself, and after installing the card, no
additional setup is necessary. If you are using the Quadro FX 4500/5500SDI or
Quadro FX 4600/5600 SDI II, the following additional setup steps are required
inorder to connect the SDI daughter card to the graphics card. These steps
must be performed when the system is off.
1. Insert the NVIDIA SDI Output card into any available expansion slot
within six inches of the NVIDIA Quadro graphics card. Secure the card's
bracket using the method provided by the chassis manufacturer (usually a
thumb screw or an integrated latch).
2. Connect one end of the 14-pin ribbon cable to the G-Sync connector on the
NVIDIA Quadro graphics card, and the other end to the NVIDIA SDI output
card.
3. On Quadro FX 4500/5500SDI, connect the SMA-to-BNC cables by screwing the
male SMA connectors onto the female SMA connectors on the NVIDIA SDI
output card. On Quadro FX 4600/5600 SDI II, this step is not necessary:
the SDI II has BNC connectors rather than SMA connectors.
4. Connect the DVI-loopback connector by connecting one end of the DVI cable
to the DVI connector on the NVIDIA SDI output card and the other end to
the "north" DVI connector on the NVIDIA Quadro graphics card. The "north"
DVI connector on the NVIDIA Quadro graphics card is the DVI connector
that is the farthest from the graphics card PCI-E connection to the
motherboard. The SDI output card will NOT function properly if this cable
is connected to the "south" DVI connector.
Once the above installation is complete, you may boot the system and configure
the SDI video output using nvidia-settings. These instructions assume that you
have already successfully installed the NVIDIA Linux Accelerated Graphics
Driver. If you have not done so, see Chapter 4 for details.
27B. CLONE MODE CONFIGURATION WITH 'nvidia-settings'
SDI video output is configured through the nvidia-settings utility. See the
'nvidia-settings(1)' man page, and the nvidia-settings online help (click the
"Help" button in the lower right corner of the interface for per-page help
information).
After the system has booted and X Windows has been started, run
nvidia-settings as
% nvidia-settings
When the NVIDIA X Server Settings page appears, follow the steps below to
configure the SDI video output.
1. Click on the "Graphics to Video Out" tree item on the side menu. This
will open the "Graphics to Video Out" page.
2. Go to the "Synchronization Options" subpage and choose a synchronization
method. From the "Sync Options" dropdown click the list arrow to the
right and then click the method that you want to use to synchronize the
SDI output.
Sync Method Description
------------- --------------------------------------------------
Free Running The SDI output will be synchronized with the
timing chosen from the SDI signal format list.
Genlock SDI output will be synchronized with the external
sync signal.
Frame Lock The SDI output will be synchronized with the
timing chosen from the SDI signal format list. In
this case, the list of available timings is
limited to those timings that can be synchronized
with the detected external sync signal.
Note that on Quadro FX 4600/5600 SDI II, you must first choose the
correct Sync Format before an incoming sync signal will be detected.
3. From the top Graphics to Video Out page, choose the output video format
that will control the video resolution, field rate, and SMPTE signaling
standard for the outgoing video stream. From the "Clone Mode" dropdown
box, click the "Video Format" arrow and then click the signal format that
you would like to use. Note that only those resolutions that are smaller
or equal to the desktop resolution will be available. Also, this list is
pruned according to the sync option selected. If genlock synchronization
is chosen, the output video format is automatically set to match the
incoming video sync format and this drop down list will be grayed out
preventing you from chosing another format. If frame lock synchronization
has been selected, then only those modes that are compatible with the
detected sync signal will be available.
4. Choose the output data format from the "Output Data Format" dropdown
list.
5. Click the "Enable SDI Output" button to enable video output using the
settings above. The status of the SDI output can be verified by examining
the LED indicators in the "Graphics to SDI property" page banner.
6. To subsequently stop SDI output, simply click on the button that now says
"Disable SDI Output".
7. In order to change any of the SDI output parameters such as the Output
Video Format, Output Data Format as well as the Synchronization Delay, it
is necessary to first disable the SDI output.
27C. CONFIGURATION FOR TWINVIEW OR AS A SEPARATE X SCREEN
SDI video output can be configured through the nvidia-settings X Server
Display Configuration page, for use in TwinView or as a separate X screen. The
SDI video output can be configured as if it were a digital flat panel,
choosing the resolution, refresh rate, and position within the desktop.
Similarly, the SDI video output can be configured for use in TwinView or as a
separate X screen through the X configuration file. The supported SDI video
output modes can be requested by name anywhere a mode name can be used in the
X configuration file (either in the "Modes" line, or in the "MetaModes"
option). E.g.,
Option "MetaModes" "CRT-0:nvidia-auto-select, DFP-1:1280x720_60.00_smpte296"
The mode names are reported in the nvidia-settings Display Configuration page
when in advanced mode.
Note that SDI "Clone Mode" as configured through the Graphics to Video Out
page in nvidia-settings is mutually exclusive with using the SDI video output
in TwinView or as a separate X screen.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 28. Configuring Depth 30 Displays
______________________________________________________________________________
This driver release supports X screens with screen depths of 30 bits per pixel
(10 bits per color component) on NVIDIA Quadro GPUs based on G80 and higher
chip architectures. This provides about 1 billion possible colors, allowing
for higher color precision and smoother gradients.
When displaying a depth 30 image on a digital flat panel, the color data will
be dithered to 8 or 6 bits per pixel, depending on the capabilities of the
flat panel. VGA outputs can display the full 10 bit range of colors.
To work reliably, depth 30 requires X.org 7.3 or higher.
NOTE: X servers starting with X.org 7.3 rely on a library called libpixman to
perform software rendering. As of this writing, the officially released
version of this library will crash when it encouters depth 30 drawables. To be
able to run X at this depth, you will need to download, compile, and install
the "wide-composite" development branch from the freedesktop.org pixman git
repository. Please see the freedesktop.org and git documentation for
instructions on how to download and compile development branches.
In addition to the above software requirements, many X applications and
toolkits do not understand depth 30 visuals as of this writing. Some programs
may work correctly, some may work but display incorrect colors, and some may
simply fail to run. In particular, many OpenGL applications request 8 bits of
alpha when searching for FBConfigs. Since depth 30 visuals have only 2 bits of
alpha, no suitable FBConfigs will be found and such applications will fail to
start.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 29. NVIDIA Contact Info and Additional Resources
______________________________________________________________________________
There is an NVIDIA Linux Driver web forum. You can access it by going to
http://www.nvnews.net and following the "Forum" and "Linux Discussion Area"
links. This is the preferable tool for seeking help; users can post questions,
answer other users' questions, and search the archives of previous postings.
If all else fails, you can contact NVIDIA for support at:
linux-bugs@nvidia.com. But please, only send email to this address after you
have explored the Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 chapters of this document, and asked
for help on the nvnews.net web forum. When emailing linux-bugs@nvidia.com,
please include the 'nvidia-bug-report.log.gz' file generated by the
'nvidia-bug-report.sh' script (which is installed as part of driver
installation).
Additional Resources
Linux OpenGL ABI
http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/ABI/
The XFree86 Project
http://www.xfree86.org/
XFree86 Video Timings HOWTO
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/XFree86-Video-Timings-HOWTO/index.html
The X.Org Foundation
http://www.x.org/
OpenGL
http://www.opengl.org/
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 30. Acknowledgements
______________________________________________________________________________
'nvidia-installer' was inspired by the 'loki_update' tool:
http://www.lokigames.com/development/loki_update.php3/
The FTP and HTTP support in 'nvidia-installer' is based upon 'snarf 7.0':
http://www.xach.com/snarf/
The self-extracting archive (aka '.run' file) is generated using
'makeself.sh': http://www.megastep.org/makeself/
The driver splash screen is decoded using 'libpng':
http://libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html
This NVIDIA Linux driver contains code from the int10 module of the X.Org
project.
The BSD implementations of the following compiler intrinsics are used for
better portability: __udivdi3, __umoddi3, __moddi3, __ucmpdi2, __cmpdi2,
__fixunssfdi, and __fixunsdfdi.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix A. Supported NVIDIA GPU Products
______________________________________________________________________________
For the most complete and accurate listing of supported GPUs, please see the
Supported Products List, available from the NVIDIA Linux x86 Graphics Driver
download page. Please go to http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html, follow the
Archive link under the Linux x86 heading, follow the link for the 173.14.37
driver, and then go to the Supported Products List.
A1. NVIDIA GEFORCE GPUS
NVIDIA GPU product Device PCI ID
------------------------------------------------------ ---------------
GeForce 6800 Ultra 0x0040
GeForce 6800 0x0041
GeForce 6800 LE 0x0042
GeForce 6800 XE 0x0043
GeForce 6800 XT 0x0044
GeForce 6800 GT 0x0045
GeForce 6800 GT 0x0046
GeForce 6800 GS 0x0047
GeForce 6800 XT 0x0048
GeForce 7800 GTX 0x0090
GeForce 7800 GTX 0x0091
GeForce 7800 GT 0x0092
GeForce 7800 GS 0x0093
GeForce 7800 SLI 0x0095
GeForce Go 7800 0x0098
GeForce Go 7800 GTX 0x0099
GeForce 6800 GS 0x00C0
GeForce 6800 0x00C1
GeForce 6800 LE 0x00C2
GeForce 6800 XT 0x00C3
GeForce Go 6800 0x00C8
GeForce Go 6800 Ultra 0x00C9
GeForce 6800 0x00F0
GeForce 6600 GT 0x00F1
GeForce 6600 0x00F2
GeForce 6200 0x00F3
GeForce 6600 LE 0x00F4
GeForce 7800 GS 0x00F5
GeForce 6800 GS 0x00F6
GeForce 6800 Ultra 0x00F9
GeForce PCX 5750 0x00FA
GeForce PCX 5900 0x00FB
GeForce PCX 5300 0x00FC
GeForce 6600 GT 0x0140
GeForce 6600 0x0141
GeForce 6600 LE 0x0142
GeForce 6600 VE 0x0143
GeForce Go 6600 0x0144
GeForce 6610 XL 0x0145
GeForce Go 6600 TE/6200 TE 0x0146
GeForce 6700 XL 0x0147
GeForce Go 6600 0x0148
GeForce Go 6600 GT 0x0149
GeForce 6200 0x014F
GeForce 6500 0x0160
GeForce 6200 TurboCache(TM) 0x0161
GeForce 6200SE TurboCache(TM) 0x0162
GeForce 6200 LE 0x0163
GeForce Go 6200 0x0164
GeForce Go 6400 0x0166
GeForce Go 6200 0x0167
GeForce Go 6400 0x0168
GeForce 6250 0x0169
GeForce 7100 GS 0x016A
GeForce 8800 GTX 0x0191
GeForce 8800 GTS 0x0193
GeForce 8800 Ultra 0x0194
Tesla C870 0x0197
GeForce 7350 LE 0x01D0
GeForce 7300 LE 0x01D1
GeForce 7300 SE/7200 GS 0x01D3
GeForce Go 7200 0x01D6
GeForce Go 7300 0x01D7
GeForce Go 7400 0x01D8
GeForce 7500 LE 0x01DD
GeForce 7300 GS 0x01DF
GeForce 6800 0x0211
GeForce 6800 LE 0x0212
GeForce 6800 GT 0x0215
GeForce 6800 XT 0x0218
GeForce 6200 0x0221
GeForce 6200 A-LE 0x0222
GeForce 6150 0x0240
GeForce 6150 LE 0x0241
GeForce 6100 0x0242
GeForce Go 6150 0x0244
GeForce Go 6100 0x0247
GeForce 7900 GTX 0x0290
GeForce 7900 GT/GTO 0x0291
GeForce 7900 GS 0x0292
GeForce 7950 GX2 0x0293
GeForce 7950 GX2 0x0294
GeForce 7950 GT 0x0295
GeForce Go 7950 GTX 0x0297
GeForce Go 7900 GS 0x0298
GeForce Go 7900 GTX 0x0299
GeForce 7600 GT 0x02E0
GeForce 7600 GS 0x02E1
GeForce 7900 GS 0x02E3
GeForce 7950 GT 0x02E4
GeForce FX 5800 Ultra 0x0301
GeForce FX 5800 0x0302
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra 0x0311
GeForce FX 5600 0x0312
GeForce FX 5600XT 0x0314
GeForce FX Go5600 0x031A
GeForce FX Go5650 0x031B
GeForce FX 5200 0x0320
GeForce FX 5200 Ultra 0x0321
GeForce FX 5200 0x0322
GeForce FX 5200LE 0x0323
GeForce FX Go5200 0x0324
GeForce FX Go5250 0x0325
GeForce FX 5500 0x0326
GeForce FX 5100 0x0327
GeForce FX Go5200 32M/64M 0x0328
GeForce FX Go53xx 0x032C
GeForce FX Go5100 0x032D
GeForce FX 5900 Ultra 0x0330
GeForce FX 5900 0x0331
GeForce FX 5900XT 0x0332
GeForce FX 5950 Ultra 0x0333
GeForce FX 5900ZT 0x0334
GeForce FX 5700 Ultra 0x0341
GeForce FX 5700 0x0342
GeForce FX 5700LE 0x0343
GeForce FX 5700VE 0x0344
GeForce FX Go5700 0x0347
GeForce FX Go5700 0x0348
GeForce 7650 GS 0x0390
GeForce 7600 GT 0x0391
GeForce 7600 GS 0x0392
GeForce 7300 GT 0x0393
GeForce 7600 LE 0x0394
GeForce 7300 GT 0x0395
GeForce Go 7600 0x0398
GeForce Go 7600 GT 0x0399
GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 0x03D0
GeForce 6100 nForce 405 0x03D1
GeForce 6100 nForce 400 0x03D2
GeForce 6100 nForce 420 0x03D5
GeForce 8600 GTS 0x0400
GeForce 8600 GT 0x0401
GeForce 8600 GT 0x0402
GeForce 8600 GS 0x0403
GeForce 8400 GS 0x0404
GeForce 9500M GS 0x0405
GeForce 8600M GT 0x0407
GeForce 9650M GS 0x0408
GeForce 8700M GT 0x0409
GeForce 8400 SE 0x0420
GeForce 8500 GT 0x0421
GeForce 8400 GS 0x0422
GeForce 8300 GS 0x0423
GeForce 8400 GS 0x0424
GeForce 8600M GS 0x0425
GeForce 8400M GT 0x0426
GeForce 8400M GS 0x0427
GeForce 8400M G 0x0428
GeForce 9300M G 0x042E
GeForce 7150M / nForce 630M 0x0531
GeForce 7000M / nForce 610M 0x0533
GeForce 7050 PV / NVIDIA nForce 630a 0x053A
GeForce 7050 PV / NVIDIA nForce 630a 0x053B
GeForce 7025 / NVIDIA nForce 630a 0x053E
GeForce 8800 GTS 512 0x0600
GeForce 8800 GT 0x0602
GeForce 9800 GX2 0x0604
GeForce 8800 GS 0x0606
GeForce 8800M GTS 0x0609
GeForce 8800M GTX 0x060C
GeForce 8800 GS 0x060D
GeForce 9600 GSO 0x0610
GeForce 8800 GT 0x0611
GeForce 9800 GTX 0x0612
GeForce 9600 GT 0x0622
GeForce 9600M GT 0x0647
GeForce 9600M GS 0x0648
GeForce 9600M GT 0x0649
GeForce 9500M G 0x064B
GeForce 8400 GS 0x06E4
GeForce 9300M GS 0x06E5
GeForce 9200M GS 0x06E8
GeForce 9300M GS 0x06E9
GeForce 7150 / NVIDIA nForce 630i 0x07E0
GeForce 7100 / NVIDIA nForce 630i 0x07E1
GeForce 7050 / NVIDIA nForce 610i 0x07E3
GeForce 9100M G 0x0844
GeForce 8300 0x0848
GeForce 8200 0x0849
nForce 730a 0x084A
GeForce 8200 0x084B
GeForce 8100 / nForce 720a 0x084F
A2. NVIDIA QUADRO GPUS
NVIDIA GPU product Device PCI ID
------------------------------------------------------ ---------------
Quadro FX 4000 0x004E
Quadro FX 4500 0x009D
Quadro FX Go1400 0x00CC
Quadro FX 3450/4000 SDI 0x00CD
Quadro FX 1400 0x00CE
Quadro FX 4400/Quadro FX 3400 0x00F8
Quadro FX 330 0x00FC
Quadro NVS 280 PCI-E/Quadro FX 330 0x00FD
Quadro FX 1300 0x00FE
Quadro NVS 440 0x014A
Quadro FX 540M 0x014C
Quadro FX 550 0x014D
Quadro FX 540 0x014E
Quadro NVS 285 0x0165
Quadro FX 5600 0x019D
Quadro FX 4600 0x019E
Quadro NVS 110M 0x01D7
Quadro NVS 110M 0x01DA
Quadro NVS 120M 0x01DB
Quadro FX 350M 0x01DC
Quadro FX 350 0x01DE
Quadro NVS 210S / NVIDIA GeForce 6150LE 0x0245
Quadro FX 2500M 0x029A
Quadro FX 1500M 0x029B
Quadro FX 5500 0x029C
Quadro FX 3500 0x029D
Quadro FX 1500 0x029E
Quadro FX 4500 X2 0x029F
Quadro FX 2000 0x0308
Quadro FX 1000 0x0309
Quadro FX Go700 0x031C
Quadro NVS 55/280 PCI 0x032A
Quadro FX 500/FX 600 0x032B
Quadro FX 3000 0x0338
Quadro FX 700 0x033F
Quadro FX Go1000 0x034C
Quadro FX 1100 0x034E
Quadro FX 560 0x039E
Quadro FX 370 0x040A
Quadro NVS 320M 0x040B
Quadro FX 570M 0x040C
Quadro FX 1600M 0x040D
Quadro FX 570 0x040E
Quadro FX 1700 0x040F
Quadro NVS 140M 0x0429
Quadro NVS 130M 0x042A
Quadro NVS 135M 0x042B
Quadro FX 360M 0x042D
Quadro NVS 290 0x042F
Quadro FX 3700 0x061A
Quadro FX 3600M 0x061C
Below are the legacy GPUs that are no longer supported in the unified driver.
These GPUs will continue to be maintained through the special legacy NVIDIA
GPU driver releases.
The 96.43.xx driver supports the following set of GPUs:
NVIDIA GPU product Device PCI ID
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
GeForce2 MX/MX 400 0x0110
GeForce2 MX 100/200 0x0111
GeForce2 Go 0x0112
Quadro2 MXR/EX/Go 0x0113
GeForce4 MX 460 0x0170
GeForce4 MX 440 0x0171
GeForce4 MX 420 0x0172
GeForce4 MX 440-SE 0x0173
GeForce4 440 Go 0x0174
GeForce4 420 Go 0x0175
GeForce4 420 Go 32M 0x0176
GeForce4 460 Go 0x0177
Quadro4 550 XGL 0x0178
GeForce4 440 Go 64M 0x0179
Quadro NVS 400 0x017A
Quadro4 500 GoGL 0x017C
GeForce4 410 Go 16M 0x017D
GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X 0x0181
GeForce4 MX 440SE with AGP8X 0x0182
GeForce4 MX 420 with AGP8X 0x0183
GeForce4 MX 4000 0x0185
Quadro4 580 XGL 0x0188
Quadro NVS 280 SD 0x018A
Quadro4 380 XGL 0x018B
Quadro NVS 50 PCI 0x018C
GeForce2 Integrated GPU 0x01A0
GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU 0x01F0
GeForce3 0x0200
GeForce3 Ti 200 0x0201
GeForce3 Ti 500 0x0202
Quadro DCC 0x0203
GeForce4 Ti 4600 0x0250
GeForce4 Ti 4400 0x0251
GeForce4 Ti 4200 0x0253
Quadro4 900 XGL 0x0258
Quadro4 750 XGL 0x0259
Quadro4 700 XGL 0x025B
GeForce4 Ti 4800 0x0280
GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8X 0x0281
GeForce4 Ti 4800 SE 0x0282
GeForce4 4200 Go 0x0286
Quadro4 980 XGL 0x0288
Quadro4 780 XGL 0x0289
Quadro4 700 GoGL 0x028C
The 71.86.xx driver supports the following set of GPUs:
NVIDIA GPU product Device PCI ID
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
RIVA TNT 0x0020
RIVA TNT2/TNT2 Pro 0x0028
RIVA TNT2 Ultra 0x0029
Vanta/Vanta LT 0x002C
RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Model 64 Pro 0x002D
Aladdin TNT2 0x00A0
GeForce 256 0x0100
GeForce DDR 0x0101
Quadro 0x0103
GeForce2 GTS/GeForce2 Pro 0x0150
GeForce2 Ti 0x0151
GeForce2 Ultra 0x0152
Quadro2 Pro 0x0153
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix B. X Config Options
______________________________________________________________________________
The following driver options are supported by the NVIDIA X driver. They may be
specified either in the Screen or Device sections of the X config file.
X Config Options
Option "NvAGP" "integer"
Configure AGP support. Integer argument can be one of:
Value Behavior
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
0 disable AGP
1 use NVIDIA internal AGP support, if possible
2 use AGPGART, if possible
3 use any AGP support (try AGPGART, then NVIDIA AGP)
Note that NVIDIA internal AGP support cannot work if AGPGART is either
statically compiled into your kernel or is built as a module and loaded
into your kernel. See Chapter 12 for details. Default: 3.
Option "NoLogo" "boolean"
Disable drawing of the NVIDIA logo splash screen at X startup. Default:
the logo is drawn for screens with depth 24.
Option "LogoPath" "string"
Sets the path to the PNG file to be used as the logo splash screen at X
startup. If the PNG file specified has a bKGD (background color) chunk,
then the screen is cleared to the color it specifies. Otherwise, the
screen is cleared to black. The logo file must be owned by root and must
not be writable by a non-root group. Note that a logo is only displayed
for screens with depth 24. Default: The built-in NVIDIA logo is used.
Option "RenderAccel" "boolean"
Enable or disable hardware acceleration of the RENDER extension. Default:
hardware acceleration of the RENDER extension is enabled.
Option "NoRenderExtension" "boolean"
Disable the RENDER extension. Other than recompiling it, the X server does
not seem to have another way of disabling this. Fortunately, we can
control this from the driver so we export this option. This is useful in
depth 8 where RENDER would normally steal most of the default colormap.
Default: RENDER is offered when possible.
Option "UBB" "boolean"
Enable or disable the Unified Back Buffer on Quadro-based GPUs (Quadro4
NVS excluded); see Chapter 20 for a description of UBB. This option has no
effect on non-Quadro GPU products. Default: UBB is on for Quadro GPUs.
Option "NoFlip" "boolean"
Disable OpenGL flipping; see Chapter 20 for a description. Default: OpenGL
will swap by flipping when possible.
Option "Dac8Bit" "boolean"
Most Quadro products by default use a 10-bit color look-up table (LUT);
setting this option to TRUE forces these GPUs to use an 8-bit (LUT).
Default: a 10-bit LUT is used, when available.
Option "Overlay" "boolean"
Enables RGB workstation overlay visuals. This is only supported on Quadro
GPUs (Quadro NVS GPUs excluded) in depth 24. This option causes the server
to advertise the SERVER_OVERLAY_VISUALS root window property and GLX will
report single- and double-buffered, Z-buffered 16-bit overlay visuals. The
transparency key is pixel 0x0000 (hex). There is no gamma correction
support in the overlay plane. This feature requires XFree86 version 4.1.0
or newer, or the X.Org X server. When TwinView is enabled, or the X screen
is either wider than 2046 pixels or taller than 2047, the overlay may be
emulated with a substantial performance penalty. RGB workstation overlays
are not supported when the Composite extension is enabled. Dynamic
TwinView is disabled when Overlays are enabled. Default: off.
UBB must be enabled when overlays are enabled (this is the default
behavior).
Option "CIOverlay" "boolean"
Enables Color Index workstation overlay visuals with identical
restrictions to Option "Overlay" above. The server will offer visuals both
with and without a transparency key. These are depth 8 PseudoColor
visuals. Enabling Color Index overlays on X servers older than XFree86 4.3
will force the RENDER extension to be disabled due to bugs in the RENDER
extension in older X servers. Color Index workstation overlays are not
supported when the Composite extension is enabled. Default: off.
UBB must be enabled when overlays are enabled (this is the default
behavior).
Option "TransparentIndex" "integer"
When color index overlays are enabled, use this option to choose which
pixel is used for the transparent pixel in visuals featuring transparent
pixels. This value is clamped between 0 and 255 (Note: some applications
such as Alias's Maya require this to be zero in order to work correctly).
Default: 0.
Option "OverlayDefaultVisual" "boolean"
When overlays are used, this option sets the default visual to an overlay
visual thereby putting the root window in the overlay. This option is not
recommended for RGB overlays. Default: off.
Option "EmulatedOverlaysTimerMs" "integer"
Enables the use of a timer within the X server to perform the updates to
the emulated overlay or CI overlay. This option can be used to improve the
performance of the emulated or CI overlays by reducing the frequency of
the updates. The value specified indicates the desired number of
milliseconds between overlay updates. To disable the use of the timer
either leave the option unset or set it to 0. Default: off.
Option "EmulatedOverlaysThreshold" "boolean"
Enables the use of a threshold within the X server to perform the updates
to the emulated overlay or CI overlay. The emulated or CI overlay updates
can be defered but this threshold will limit the number of defered OpenGL
updates allowed before the overlay is updated. This option can be used to
trade off performance and animation quality. Default: on.
Option "EmulatedOverlaysThresholdValue" "integer"
Controls the threshold used in updating the emulated or CI overlays. This
is used in conjunction with the EmulatedOverlaysThreshold option to trade
off performance and animation quality. Higher values for this option favor
performance over quality. Setting low values of this option will not cause
the overlay to be updated more often than the frequence specified by the
EmulatedOverlaysTimerMs option. Default: 5.
Option "RandRRotation" "boolean"
Enable rotation support for the XRandR extension. This allows use of the
XRandR X server extension for configuring the screen orientation through
rotation. This feature is supported using depth 24. This requires an X.Org
X 6.8.1 or newer X server. This feature does not work with hardware
overlays; emulated overlays will be used instead at a substantial
performance penalty. See Chapter 17 for details. Default: off.
Option "Rotate" "string"
Enable static rotation support. Unlike the RandRRotation option above,
this option takes effect as soon as the X server is started and will work
with older versions of X. This feature is supported using depth 24. This
feature does not work with hardware overlays; emulated overlays will be
used instead at a substantial performance penalty. This option is not
compatible with the RandR extension. Valid rotations are "normal", "left",
"inverted", and "right". Default: off.
Option "AllowDDCCI" "boolean"
Enables DDC/CI support in the NV-CONTROL X extension. DDC/CI is a
mechanism for communication between your computer and your display device.
This can be used to set the values normally controlled through your
display device's On Screen Display. See the DDC/CI NV-CONTROL attributes
in 'NVCtrl.h' and functions in 'NVCtrlLib.h' in the 'nvidia-settings'
source code. Default: off (DDC/CI is disabled).
Note that support for DDC/CI within the NVIDIA X driver's NV-CONTROL
extension is deprecated, and will be removed in a future release. Other
mechanisms for DDC/CI, such as the kernel i2c subsystem on Linux, are
preferred over NV-CONTROL's DDC/CI support.
If you would prefer that the NVIDIA X driver's NV-CONTROL X extension not
remove DDC/CI support, please make your concerns known my emailing
linux-bugs@nvidia.com.
Option "SWCursor" "boolean"
Enable or disable software rendering of the X cursor. Default: off.
Option "HWCursor" "boolean"
Enable or disable hardware rendering of the X cursor. Default: on.
Option "CursorShadow" "boolean"
Enable or disable use of a shadow with the hardware accelerated cursor;
this is a black translucent replica of your cursor shape at a given offset
from the real cursor. Default: off (no cursor shadow).
Option "CursorShadowAlpha" "integer"
The alpha value to use for the cursor shadow; only applicable if
CursorShadow is enabled. This value must be in the range [0, 255] -- 0 is
completely transparent; 255 is completely opaque. Default: 64.
Option "CursorShadowXOffset" "integer"
The offset, in pixels, that the shadow image will be shifted to the right
from the real cursor image; only applicable if CursorShadow is enabled.
This value must be in the range [0, 32]. Default: 4.
Option "CursorShadowYOffset" "integer"
The offset, in pixels, that the shadow image will be shifted down from the
real cursor image; only applicable if CursorShadow is enabled. This value
must be in the range [0, 32]. Default: 2.
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "string"
Allows you to override what the NVIDIA kernel module detects is connected
to your graphics card. This may be useful, for example, if you use a KVM
(keyboard, video, mouse) switch and you are switched away when X is
started. In such a situation, the NVIDIA kernel module cannot detect which
display devices are connected, and the NVIDIA X driver assumes you have a
single CRT.
Valid values for this option are "CRT" (cathode ray tube), "DFP" (digital
flat panel), or "TV" (television); if using TwinView, this option may be a
comma-separated list of display devices; e.g.: "CRT, CRT" or "CRT, DFP".
It is generally recommended to not use this option, but instead use the
"UseDisplayDevice" option.
NOTE: anything attached to a 15 pin VGA connector is regarded by the
driver as a CRT. "DFP" should only be used to refer to digital flat panels
connected via a DVI port.
Default: string is NULL (the NVIDIA driver will detect the connected
display devices).
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "string"
The "UseDisplayDevice" X configuration option is a list of one or more
display devices, which limits the display devices the NVIDIA X driver will
consider for an X screen. The display device names used in the option may
be either specific (with a numeric suffix; e.g., "DFP-1") or general
(without a numeric suffix; e.g., "DFP").
When assigning display devices to X screens, the NVIDIA X driver walks
through the list of all (not already assigned) display devices detected as
connected. When the "UseDisplayDevice" X configuration option is
specified, the X driver will only consider connected display devices which
are also included in the "UseDisplayDevice" list. This can be thought of
as a "mask" against the connected (and not already assigned) display
devices.
Note the subtle difference between this option and the "ConnectedMonitor"
option: the "ConnectedMonitor" option overrides which display devices are
actually detected, while the "UseDisplayDevice" option controls which of
the detected display devices will be used on this X screen.
Of the list of display devices considered for this X screen (either all
connected display devices, or a subset limited by the "UseDisplayDevice"
option), the NVIDIA X driver first looks at CRTs, then at DFPs, and
finally at TVs. For example, if both a CRT and a DFP are connected, by
default the X driver would assign the CRT to this X screen. However, by
specifying:
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP"
the X screen would use the DFP instead. Or, if CRT-0, DFP-0, and DFP-1 are
connected and TwinView is enabled, the X driver would assign CRT-0 and
DFP-0 to the X screen. However, by specifying:
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "CRT-0, DFP-1"
the X screen would use CRT-0 and DFP-1 instead.
Additionally, the special value "none" can be specified for the
"UseDisplayDevice" option. When this value is given, any programming of
the display hardware is disabled. The NVIDIA driver will not perform any
mode validation or modesetting for this X screen. This is intended for use
in conjunction with CUDA or in remote graphics solutions such as VNC or
Hewlett Packard's Remote Graphics Software (RGS). This functionality is
only available on Quadro and Tesla GPUs.
Note the following restrictions for setting the "UseDisplayDevice" to
"none":
o OpenGL SyncToVBlank will have no effect.
o You must also explicitly specify the Virtual screen size for your X
screen (see the xorg.conf(5x) or XF86Config(5x) manpages for the
'Virtual' option, or the nvidia-xconfig(1) manpage for the
'--virtual' commandline option); the Virtual screen size must be at
least 304x200, and the width must be a multiple of 8.
o None of Stereo, Overlay, CIOverlay, or SLI are allowed when
"UseDisplayDevice" is set to "none".
Option "UseEdidFreqs" "boolean"
This option controls whether the NVIDIA X driver will use the HorizSync
and VertRefresh ranges given in a display device's EDID, if any. When
UseEdidFreqs is set to True, EDID-provided range information will override
the HorizSync and VertRefresh ranges specified in the Monitor section. If
a display device does not provide an EDID, or the EDID does not specify an
hsync or vrefresh range, then the X server will default to the HorizSync
and VertRefresh ranges specified in the Monitor section of your X config
file. These frequency ranges are used when validating modes for your
display device.
Default: True (EDID frequencies will be used)
Option "UseEDID" "boolean"
By default, the NVIDIA X driver makes use of a display device's EDID, when
available, during construction of its mode pool. The EDID is used as a
source for possible modes, for valid frequency ranges, and for collecting
data on the physical dimensions of the display device for computing the
DPI (see Appendix E). However, if you wish to disable the driver's use of
the EDID, you can set this option to False:
Option "UseEDID" "FALSE"
Note that, rather than globally disable all uses of the EDID, you can
individually disable each particular use of the EDID; e.g.,
Option "UseEDIDFreqs" "FALSE"
Option "UseEDIDDpi" "FALSE"
Option "ModeValidation" "NoEdidModes"
Default: True (use EDID).
Option "IgnoreEDID" "boolean"
This option is deprecated, and no longer affects behavior of the X driver.
See the "UseEDID" option for details.
Option "NoDDC" "boolean"
Synonym for "IgnoreEDID". This option is deprecated, and no longer affects
behavior of the X driver. See the "UseEDID" option for details.
Option "UseInt10Module" "boolean"
Enable use of the X Int10 module to soft-boot all secondary cards, rather
than POSTing the cards through the NVIDIA kernel module. Default: off
(POSTing is done through the NVIDIA kernel module).
Option "TwinView" "boolean"
Enable or disable TwinView. See Chapter 13 for details. Default: off
(TwinView is disabled).
Option "TwinViewOrientation" "string"
Controls the relationship between the two display devices when using
TwinView. Takes one of the following values: "RightOf" "LeftOf" "Above"
"Below" "Clone". See Chapter 13 for details. Default: string is NULL.
Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "range(s)"
This option is like the HorizSync entry in the Monitor section, but is for
the second monitor when using TwinView. See Chapter 13 for details.
Default: none.
Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "range(s)"
This option is like the VertRefresh entry in the Monitor section, but is
for the second monitor when using TwinView. See Chapter 13 for details.
Default: none.
Option "MetaModes" "string"
This option describes the combination of modes to use on each monitor when
using TwinView. See Chapter 13 for details. Default: string is NULL.
Option "NoTwinViewXineramaInfo" "boolean"
When in TwinView, the NVIDIA X driver normally provides a Xinerama
extension that X clients (such as window managers) can use to discover the
current TwinView configuration, such as where each display device is
positioned within the X screen. Some window mangers get confused by this
information, so this option is provided to disable this behavior. Default:
false (TwinView Xinerama information is provided).
Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "string"
When the NVIDIA X driver provides TwinViewXineramaInfo (see the
NoTwinViewXineramaInfo X config option), it by default reports the
currently enabled display devices in the order "CRT, DFP, TV". The
TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder X config option can be used to override this
order.
The option string is a comma-separated list of display device names. The
display device names can either be general (e.g, "CRT", which identifies
all CRTs), or specific (e.g., "CRT-1", which identifies a particular CRT).
Not all display devices need to be identified in the option string;
display devices that are not listed will be implicitly appended to the end
of the list, in their default order.
Note that TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder tracks all display devices that could
possibly be connected to the GPU, not just the ones that are currently
enabled. When reporting the Xinerama information, the NVIDIA X driver
walks through the display devices in the order specified, only reporting
enabled display devices.
Examples:
"DFP"
"TV, DFP"
"DFP-1, DFP-0, TV, CRT"
In the first example, any enabled DFPs would be reported first (any
enabled CRTs or TVs would be reported afterwards). In the second example,
any enabled TVs would be reported first, then any enabled DFPs (any
enabled CRTs would be reported last). In the last example, if DFP-1 were
enabled, it would be reported first, then DFP-0, then any enabled TVs, and
then any enabled CRTs; finally, any other enabled DFPs would be reported.
Default: "CRT, DFP, TV"
Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOverride" "string"
This option overrides the values reported by NVIDIA's TwinView Xinerama
implementation. This disregards the actual display devices used by the X
screen and any order specified in TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder.
The option string is interpreted as a comma-separated list of regions,
specified as '[width]x[height]+[xoffset]+[yoffset]'. The regions' sizes
and offsets are not validated against the X screen size, but are directly
reported to any Xinerama client.
Examples:
"1600x1200+0+0, 1600x1200+1600+0"
"1024x768+0+0, 1024x768+1024+0, 1024x768+0+768, 1024x768+1024+768"
Option "TVStandard" "string"
See Chapter 16 for details on configuring TV-out.
Option "TVOutFormat" "string"
See Chapter 16 for details on configuring TV-out.
Option "TVOverScan" "Decimal value in the range 0.0 to 1.0"
Valid values are in the range 0.0 through 1.0; See Chapter 16 for details
on configuring TV-out.
Option "Stereo" "integer"
Enable offering of quad-buffered stereo visuals on Quadro. Integer
indicates the type of stereo equipment being used:
Value Equipment
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
1 DDC glasses. The sync signal is sent to the
glasses via the DDC signal to the monitor. These
usually involve a passthrough cable between the
monitor and the graphics card. This mode is not
available on G8xGL and higher GPUs.
2 "Blueline" glasses. These usually involve a
passthrough cable between the monitor and graphics
card. The glasses know which eye to display based
on the length of a blue line visible at the bottom
of the screen. When in this mode, the root window
dimensions are one pixel shorter in the Y
dimension than requested. This mode does not work
with virtual root window sizes larger than the
visible root window size (desktop panning). This
mode is not available on G8xGL and higher GPUs.
3 Onboard stereo support. This is usually only found
on professional cards. The glasses connect via a
DIN connector on the back of the graphics card.
4 TwinView clone mode stereo (aka "passive" stereo).
On graphics cards that support TwinView, the left
eye is displayed on the first display, and the
right eye is displayed on the second display. This
is normally used in conjunction with special
projectors to produce 2 polarized images which are
then viewed with polarized glasses. To use this
stereo mode, you must also configure TwinView in
clone mode with the same resolution, panning
offset, and panning domains on each display.
5 Vertical interlaced stereo mode, for use with
SeeReal Stereo Digital Flat Panels.
6 Color interleaved stereo mode, for use with
Sharp3D Stereo Digital Flat Panels.
Stereo is only available on Quadro cards. Stereo options 1, 2, and 3 (aka
"active" stereo) may be used with TwinView if all modes within each
MetaMode have identical timing values. See Chapter 19 for suggestions on
making sure the modes within your MetaModes are identical. The identical
ModeLine requirement is not necessary for Stereo option 4 ("passive"
stereo). Currently, stereo operation may be "quirky" on the original
Quadro (NV10) GPU and left-right flipping may be erratic. We are trying to
resolve this issue for a future release. Default: 0 (Stereo is not
enabled).
UBB must be enabled when stereo is enabled (this is the default behavior).
Stereo options 1, 2, and 3 (aka "active" stereo) are not supported on
digital flat panels.
Multi-GPU cards (such as the Quadro FX 4500 X2) provide a single connector
for onboard stereo support (option 3), which is tied to the bottommost
GPU. In order to synchronize onboard stereo with the other GPU, you must
use a G-Sync device (see Chapter 26 for details).
Option "AllowDFPStereo" "boolean"
By default, the NVIDIA X driver performs a check which disables active
stereo (stereo options 1, 2, and 3) if the X screen is driving a DFP. The
"AllowDFPStereo" option bypasses this check.
Option "ForceStereoFlipping" "boolean"
Stereo flipping is the process by which left and right eyes are displayed
on alternating vertical refreshes. Normally, stereo flipping is only
performed when a stereo drawable is visible. This option forces stereo
flipping even when no stereo drawables are visible.
This is to be used in conjunction with the "Stereo" option. If "Stereo" is
0, the "ForceStereoFlipping" option has no effect. If otherwise, the
"ForceStereoFlipping" option will force the behavior indicated by the
"Stereo" option, even if no stereo drawables are visible. This option is
useful in a multiple-screen environment in which a stereo application is
run on a different screen than the stereo master.
Possible values:
Value Behavior
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
0 Stereo flipping is not forced. The default
behavior as indicated by the "Stereo" option is
used.
1 Stereo flipping is forced. Stereo is running even
if no stereo drawables are visible. The stereo
mode depends on the value of the "Stereo" option.
Default: 0 (Stereo flipping is not forced). Note that active stereo is not
supported on digital flat panels.
Option "XineramaStereoFlipping" "boolean"
By default, when using Stereo with Xinerama, all physical X screens having
a visible stereo drawable will stereo flip. Use this option to allow only
one physical X screen to stereo flip at a time.
This is to be used in conjunction with the "Stereo" and "Xinerama"
options. If "Stereo" is 0 or "Xinerama" is 0, the "XineramaStereoFlipping"
option has no effect.
If you wish to have all X screens stereo flip all the time, see the
"ForceStereoFlipping" option.
Possible values:
Value Behavior
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
0 Stereo flipping is enabled on one X screen at a
time. Stereo is enabled on the first X screen
having the stereo drawable.
1 Stereo flipping in enabled on all X screens.
Default: 1 (Stereo flipping is enabled on all X screens).
Option "NoBandWidthTest" "boolean"
As part of mode validation, the X driver tests if a given mode fits within
the hardware's memory bandwidth constraints. This option disables this
test. Default: false (the memory bandwidth test is performed).
Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "string"
This option tells the NVIDIA kernel module to completely ignore the
indicated classes of display devices when checking which display devices
are connected. You may specify a comma-separated list containing any of
"CRT", "DFP", and "TV". For example:
Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "DFP, TV"
will cause the NVIDIA driver to not attempt to detect if any digital flat
panels or TVs are connected. This option is not normally necessary;
however, some video BIOSes contain incorrect information about which
display devices may be connected, or which i2c port should be used for
detection. These errors can cause long delays in starting X. If you are
experiencing such delays, you may be able to avoid this by telling the
NVIDIA driver to ignore display devices which you know are not connected.
NOTE: anything attached to a 15 pin VGA connector is regarded by the
driver as a CRT. "DFP" should only be used to refer to digital flat panels
connected via a DVI port.
Option "MultisampleCompatibility" "boolean"
Enable or disable the use of separate front and back multisample buffers.
Enabling this will consume more memory but is necessary for correct output
when rendering to both the front and back buffers of a multisample or FSAA
drawable. This option is necessary for correct operation of SoftImage XSI.
Default: false (a single multisample buffer is shared between the front
and back buffers).
Option "NoPowerConnectorCheck" "boolean"
The NVIDIA X driver will abort X server initialization if it detects that
a GPU that requires an external power connector does not have an external
power connector plugged in. This option can be used to bypass this test.
Default: false (the power connector test is performed).
Option "XvmcUsesTextures" "boolean"
Forces XvMC to use the 3D engine for XvMCPutSurface requests rather than
the video overlay. Default: false (video overlay is used when available).
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "boolean"
Enables GLX even when the Composite X extension is loaded. ENABLE AT YOUR
OWN RISK. OpenGL applications will not display correctly in many
circumstances with this setting enabled.
This option is intended for use on X.Org X servers older than X11R6.9.0.
On X11R6.9.0 or newer X servers, the NVIDIA OpenGL implementation
interacts properly by default with the Composite X extension and this
option should not be needed. However, on X11R6.9.0 or newer X servers,
support for GLX with Composite can be disabled by setting this option to
False.
Default: false (GLX is disabled when Composite is enabled on X servers
older than X11R6.9.0).
Option "UseCompositeWrapper" "boolean"
Enables the X server's "composite wrapper", which performs coordinate
translations necessary for the Composite extension.
Default: false (the NVIDIA X driver performs its own coordinate
translation).
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "boolean"
Adds a 32-bit ARGB visual for each supported OpenGL configuration. This
allows applications to use OpenGL to render with alpha transparency into
32-bit windows and pixmaps. This option requires the Composite extension.
Default: ARGB GLX visuals are enabled on X servers new enough to support
them when the Composite extension is also enabled.
Option "DisableGLXRootClipping" "boolean"
If enabled, no clipping will be performed on rendering done by OpenGL in
the root window. This option is deprecated. It is needed by older versions
of OpenGL-based composite managers that draw the contents of redirected
windows directly into the root window using OpenGL. Most OpenGL-based
composite managers have been updated to support the Composite Overlay
Window, a feature introduced in Xorg release 7.1. Using the Composite
Overlay Window is the preferred method for performing OpenGL-based
compositing.
Option "DamageEvents" "boolean"
Use OS-level events to efficiently notify X when a client has performed
direct rendering to a window that needs to be composited. This will
significantly improve performance and interactivity when using GLX
applications with a composite manager running. It will also affect
applications using GLX when rotation is enabled. This option is currently
incompatible with SLI and Multi-GPU modes and will be disabled if either
are used. Enabled by default.
Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "boolean"
Forces the initialization of the X server with the exact timings specified
in the ModeLine. Default: false (for DVI devices, the X server initializes
with the closest mode in the EDID list).
Option "Coolbits" "integer"
Enables various unsupported features, such as support for GPU clock
manipulation in the NV-CONTROL X extension. This option accepts a bit mask
of features to enable.
When "1" (Bit 0) is set in the "Coolbits" option value, the
nvidia-settings utility will contain a page labeled "Clock Frequencies"
through which clock settings can be manipulated. "Coolbits" is only
available on GeForce FX, Quadro FX and newer desktop GPUs. On GeForce FX
and newer mobile GPUs, limited clock manipulation support is available
when "1" is set in the "Coolbits" option value: clocks can be lowered
relative to the default settings; overclocking is not supported due to the
thermal constraints of notebook designs.
WARNING: this may cause system damage and void warranties. This utility
can run your computer system out of the manufacturer's design
specifications, including, but not limited to: higher system voltages,
above normal temperatures, excessive frequencies, and changes to BIOS that
may corrupt the BIOS. Your computer's operating system may hang and result
in data loss or corrupted images. Depending on the manufacturer of your
computer system, the computer system, hardware and software warranties may
be voided, and you may not receive any further manufacturer support.
NVIDIA does not provide customer service support for the Coolbits option.
It is for these reasons that absolutely no warranty or guarantee is either
express or implied. Before enabling and using, you should determine the
suitability of the utility for your intended use, and you shall assume all
responsibility in connection therewith.
When "2" (Bit 1) is set in the "Coolbits" option value, the NVIDIA driver
will attempt to initialize SLI when using GPUs with different amounts of
video memory.
The default for this option is 0 (unsupported features are disabled).
Option "MultiGPU" "string"
This option controls the configuration of Multi-GPU rendering in supported
configurations.
Value Behavior
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
0, no, off, false, Single Use only a single GPU when
rendering
1, yes, on, true, Auto Enable Multi-GPU and allow the
driver to automatically select
the appropriate rendering mode.
AFR Enable Multi-GPU and use the
Alternate Frame Rendering mode.
SFR Enable Multi-GPU and use the
Split Frame Rendering mode.
AA Enable Multi-GPU and use
antialiasing. Use this in
conjunction with full scene
antialiasing to improve visual
quality.
Option "SLI" "string"
This option controls the configuration of SLI rendering in supported
configurations.
Value Behavior
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
0, no, off, false, Single Use only a single GPU when
rendering
1, yes, on, true, Auto Enable SLI and allow the driver
to automatically select the
appropriate rendering mode.
AFR Enable SLI and use the Alternate
Frame Rendering mode.
SFR Enable SLI and use the Split
Frame Rendering mode.
AA Enable SLI and use SLI
Antialiasing. Use this in
conjunction with full scene
antialiasing to improve visual
quality.
AFRofAA Enable SLI and use SLI Alternate
Frame Rendering of Antialiasing
mode. Use this in conjunction
with full scene antialiasing to
improve visual quality. This
option is only valid for SLI
configurations with 4 GPUs.
Option "TripleBuffer" "boolean"
Enable or disable the use of triple buffering. If this option is enabled,
OpenGL windows that sync to vblank and are double-buffered will be given a
third buffer. This decreases the time an application stalls while waiting
for vblank events, but increases latency slightly (delay between user
input and displayed result).
Option "DPI" "string"
This option specifies the Dots Per Inch for the X screen; for example:
Option "DPI" "75 x 85"
will set the horizontal DPI to 75 and the vertical DPI to 85. By default,
the X driver will compute the DPI of the X screen from the EDID of any
connected display devices. See Appendix E for details. Default: string is
NULL (disabled).
Option "UseEdidDpi" "string"
By default, the NVIDIA X driver computes the DPI of an X screen based on
the physical size of the display device, as reported in the EDID, and the
size in pixels of the first mode to be used on the display device. If
multiple display devices are used by the X screen, then the NVIDIA X
screen will choose which display device to use. This option can be used to
specify which display device to use. The string argument can be a display
device name, such as:
Option "UseEdidDpi" "DFP-0"
or the argument can be "FALSE" to disable use of EDID-based DPI
calculations:
Option "UseEdidDpi" "FALSE"
See Appendix E for details. Default: string is NULL (the driver computes
the DPI from the EDID of a display device and selects the display device).
Option "ConstantDPI" "boolean"
By default on X.Org 6.9 or newer X servers, the NVIDIA X driver recomputes
the size in millimeters of the X screen whenever the size in pixels of the
X screen is changed using XRandR, such that the DPI remains constant.
This behavior can be disabled (which means that the size in millimeters
will not change when the size in pixels of the X screen changes) by
setting the "ConstantDPI" option to "FALSE"; e.g.,
Option "ConstantDPI" "FALSE"
ConstantDPI defaults to True.
On X servers older than X.Org 6.9, the NVIDIA X driver cannot change the
size in millimeters of the X screen. Therefore the DPI of the X screen
will change when XRandR changes the size in pixels of the X screen. The
driver will behave as if ConstantDPI was forced to FALSE.
Option "CustomEDID" "string"
This option forces the X driver to use the EDID specified in a file rather
than the display's EDID. You may specify a semicolon separated list of
display names and filename pairs. The display name is any of "CRT-0",
"CRT-1", "DFP-0", "DFP-1", "TV-0", "TV-1". The file contains a raw EDID
(e.g., a file generated by nvidia-settings).
For example:
Option "CustomEDID" "CRT-0:/tmp/edid1.bin; DFP-0:/tmp/edid2.bin"
will assign the EDID from the file /tmp/edid1.bin to the display device
CRT-0, and the EDID from the file /tmp/edid2.bin to the display device
DFP-0. Note that a display device name must always be specified even if
only one EDID is specified.
Option "ModeValidation" "string"
This option provides fine-grained control over each stage of the mode
validation pipeline, disabling individual mode validation checks. This
option should only very rarely be used.
The option string is a semicolon-separated list of comma-separated lists
of mode validation arguments. Each list of mode validation arguments can
optionally be prepended with a display device name.
": , ; : , , ; ..."
Possible arguments:
o "AllowNon60HzDFPModes": some lower quality TMDS encoders are only
rated to drive DFPs at 60Hz; the driver will determine when only 60Hz
DFP modes are allowed. This argument disables this stage of the mode
validation pipeline.
o "NoMaxPClkCheck": each mode has a pixel clock; this pixel clock is
validated against the maximum pixel clock of the hardware (for a DFP,
this is the maximum pixel clock of the TMDS encoder, for a CRT, this
is the maximum pixel clock of the DAC). This argument disables the
maximum pixel clock checking stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoEdidMaxPClkCheck": a display device's EDID can specify the maximum
pixel clock that the display device supports; a mode's pixel clock is
validated against this pixel clock maximum. This argument disables
this stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "AllowInterlacedModes": interlaced modes are not supported on all
NVIDIA GPUs; the driver will discard interlaced modes on GPUs where
interlaced modes are not supported; this argument disables this stage
of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoMaxSizeCheck": each NVIDIA GPU has a maximum resolution that it
can drive; this argument disables this stage of the mode validation
pipeline.
o "NoHorizSyncCheck": a mode's horizontal sync is validated against the
range of valid horizontal sync values; this argument disables this
stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoVertRefreshCheck": a mode's vertical refresh rate is validated
against the range of valid vertical refresh rate values; this
argument disables this stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoWidthAlignmentCheck": the alignment of a mode's visible width is
validated against the capabilities of the GPU; normally, a mode's
visible width must be a multiple of 8. This argument disables this
stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck": when validating for a DFP, a mode's
size is validated against the native resolution of the DFP; this
argument disables this stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoVirtualSizeCheck": if the X configuration file requests a specific
virtual screen size, a mode cannot be larger than that virtual size;
this argument disables this stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoVesaModes": when constructing the mode pool for a display device,
the X driver uses a built-in list of VESA modes as one of the mode
sources; this argument disables use of these built-in VESA modes.
o "NoEdidModes": when constructing the mode pool for a display device,
the X driver uses any modes listed in the display device's EDID as
one of the mode sources; this argument disables use of EDID-specified
modes.
o "NoXServerModes": when constructing the mode pool for a display
device, the X driver uses the built-in modes provided by the core
XFree86/Xorg X server as one of the mode sources; this argument
disables use of these modes. Note that this argument does not disable
custom ModeLines specified in the X config file; see the
"NoCustomModes" argument for that.
o "NoCustomModes": when constructing the mode pool for a display
device, the X driver uses custom ModeLines specified in the X config
file (through the "Mode" or "ModeLine" entries in the Monitor
Section) as one of the mode sources; this argument disables use of
these modes.
o "NoPredefinedModes": when constructing the mode pool for a display
device, the X driver uses additional modes predefined by the NVIDIA X
driver; this argument disables use of these modes.
o "NoUserModes": additional modes can be added to the mode pool
dynamically, using the NV-CONTROL X extension; this argument
prohibits user-specified modes via the NV-CONTROL X extension.
o "NoExtendedGpuCapabilitiesCheck": allow mode timings that may exceed
the GPU's extended capability checks.
o "ObeyEdidContradictions": an EDID may contradict itself by listing a
mode as supported, but the mode may exceed an EDID-specified valid
frequency range (HorizSync, VertRefresh, or maximum pixel clock).
Normally, the NVIDIA X driver prints a warning in this scenario, but
does not invalidate an EDID-specified mode just because it exceeds an
EDID-specified valid frequency range. However, the
"ObeyEdidContradictions" argument instructs the NVIDIA X driver to
invalidate these modes.
o "NoTotalSizeCheck": allow modes in which the invididual visible or
sync pulse timings exceed the total raster size.
o "DoubleScanPriority": on GPUs older than G80, doublescan modes are
sorted before non-doublescan modes of the same resolution for
purposes of modepool sorting; but on G80 and later GPUs, doublescan
modes are sorted after non-doublescan modes of the same resolution.
This token inverts that priority (i.e., doublescan modes will be
sorted after on pre-G80 GPUs, and sorted before on G80 and later
GPUs).
o "NoDualLinkDVICheck": for mode timings used on dual link DVI DFPs,
the driver must perform additional checks to ensure that the correct
pixels are sent on the correct link. For some of these checks, the
driver will invalidate the mode timings; for other checks, the driver
will implicitly modify the mode timings to meet the GPU's dual link
DVI requirements. This token disables this dual link DVI checking.
Examples:
Option "ModeValidation" "NoMaxPClkCheck"
disable the maximum pixel clock check when validating modes on all display
devices.
Option "ModeValidation" "CRT-0: NoEdidModes, NoMaxPClkCheck; DFP-0:
NoVesaModes"
do not use EDID modes and do not perform the maximum pixel clock check on
CRT-0, and do not use VESA modes on DFP-0.
Option "UseEvents" "boolean"
Enables the use of system events in some cases when the X driver is
waiting for the hardware. The X driver can briefly spin through a tight
loop when waiting for the hardware. With this option the X driver instead
sets an event handler and waits for the hardware through the 'poll()'
system call. Default: the use of the events is disabled.
Option "FlatPanelProperties" "string"
This option requests particular properties for all or a subset of the
connected flat panels.
The option string is a semicolon-separated list of comma-separated
property=value pairs. Each list of property=value pairs can optionally be
prepended with a flat panel name.
": , ; :
; ..."
Recognized properties:
o "Scaling": controls the flat panel scaling mode; possible values are:
'Default' (the driver will use whichever scaling state is current),
'Native' (the driver will use the flat panel's scaler, if possible),
'Scaled' (the driver will use the NVIDIA GPU's scaler, if possible),
'Centered' (the driver will center the image, if possible), and
'aspect-scaled' (the X driver will scale with the NVIDIA GPU's
scaler, but keep the aspect ratio correct).
o "Dithering": controls the flat panel dithering mode; possible values
are: 'Default' (the driver will decide when to dither), 'Enabled'
(the driver will always dither, if possible), and 'Disabled' (the
driver will never dither).
Examples:
Option "FlatPanelProperties" "Scaling = Centered"
set the flat panel scaling mode to centered on all flat panels.
Option "FlatPanelProperties" "DFP-0: Scaling = Centered; DFP-1:
Scaling = Scaled, Dithering = Enabled"
set DFP-0's scaling mode to centered, set DFP-1's scaling mode to scaled
and its dithering mode to enabled.
Option "ProbeAllGpus" "boolean"
When the NVIDIA X driver initializes, it probes all GPUs in the system,
even if no X screens are configured on them. This is done so that the X
driver can report information about all the system's GPUs through the
NV-CONTROL X extension. This option can be set to FALSE to disable this
behavior, such that only GPUs with X screens configured on them will be
probed. Default: all GPUs in the system are probed.
Option "DynamicTwinView" "boolean"
Enable or disable support for dynamically configuring TwinView on this X
screen. When DynamicTwinView is enabled (the default), the refresh rate of
a mode (reported through XF86VidMode or XRandR) does not correctly report
the refresh rate, but instead is a unique number such that each MetaMode
has a different value. This is to guarantee that MetaModes can be uniquely
identified by XRandR.
When DynamicTwinView is disabled, the refresh rate reported through XRandR
will be accurate, but NV-CONTROL clients such as nvidia-settings will not
be able to dynamically manipulate the X screen's MetaModes. TwinView can
still be configured from the X config file when DynamicTwinView is
disabled.
Default: DynamicTwinView is enabled.
Option "IncludeImplicitMetaModes" "boolean"
When the X server starts, a mode pool is created per display device,
containing all the mode timings that the NVIDIA X driver determined to be
valid for the display device. However, the only MetaModes that are made
available to the X server are the ones explicitly requested in the X
configuration file.
It is convenient for fullscreen applications to be able to change between
the modes in the mode pool, even if a given target mode was not explicitly
requested in the X configuration file.
To facilitate this, the NVIDIA X driver will, if only one display device
is in use when the X server starts, implicitly add MetaModes for all modes
in the display device's mode pool. This makes all the modes in the mode
pool available to full screen applications that use the XF86VidMode or
XRandR X extensions.
To prevent this behavior, and only add MetaModes that are explicitly
requested in the X configuration file, set this option to FALSE.
Default: IncludeImplicitMetaModes is enabled.
Option "AllowIndirectPixmaps" "boolean"
Some graphics cards have more video memory than can be mapped at once by
the CPU (generally only 256 MB of video memory can be CPU-mapped). On
graphics cards based on G80 and higher with such a memory configuration,
this option allows the driver to place more pixmaps in video memory which
will improve hardware rendering performance but will slow down software
rendering. On some systems, up to 768 megabytes of virtual address space
will be reserved in the X server for indirect pixmap access. This virtual
memory does not consume any physical resources.
Default: on (indirect pixmaps will be used, when available).
Option "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "boolean"
Normally, VBlank interrupts are generated on every vertical refresh of
every display device connected to the GPU(s) installed in a given system.
This experimental option enables on-demand VBlank control, allowing the
driver to enable VBlank interrupt generation only when it is required.
This can help conserve power.
Default: off (on-demand VBlank control is disabled).
Option "PixmapCacheSize" "size"
This option controls how much video memory is reserved for pixmap
allocations. When the option is specified, "size" specifies the number of
pixels to be used for each of the 8, 16, and 32 bit per pixel pixmap
caches. Reserving this memory improves performance when pixmaps are
created and destroyed rapidly, but prevents this memory from being used by
OpenGL. When this cache is disabled or space in the cache is exhausted,
the driver will still allocate pixmaps in video memory but pixmap creation
and deletion performance will not be improved.
This option may be removed in a future driver release after improvements
to the pixmap cache make it obsolete.
Example: "Option "PixmapCacheSize" "200000"" will allocate approximately
200,000 pixels for each of the pixmap caches.
Default: off (no memory is reserved specifically for pixmaps).
Option "LoadKernelModule" "boolean"
Normally, the NVIDIA Linux X driver module will attempt to load the NVIDIA
Linux kernel module. Set this option to "off" to disable automatic loading
of the NVIDIA kernel module by the NVIDIA X driver. Default: on (the
driver loads the kernel module).
Option "ConnectToAcpid" "boolean"
The ACPI daemon (acpid) receives information about ACPI events like
AC/Battery power, docking, etc. acpid will deliver these events to the
NVIDIA X driver via a UNIX domain socket connection. By default, the
NVIDIA X driver will attempt to connect to acpid to receive these events.
Set this option to "off" to prevent the NVIDIA X driver from connecting to
acpid. Default: on (the NVIDIA X driver will attempt to connect to acpid).
Option "AcpidSocketPath" "string"
The NVIDIA X driver attempts to connect to the ACPI daemon (acpid) via a
UNIX domain socket. The default path to this socket is
"/var/run/acpid.socket". Set this option to specify an alternate path to
acpid's socket. Default: "/var/run/acpid.socket".
Option "EnableACPIHotkeys" "boolean"
The NVIDIA Linux X driver can detect mobile display change hotkey events
either through ACPI or by periodically checking the GPU hardware state.
While checking the GPU hardware state is generally sufficient to detect
display change hotkey events, ACPI hotkey event delivery is preferable.
However, X servers prior to X.Org xserver-1.2.0 have a bug that cause the
X server to crash when the X server receives an ACPI hotkey event
(freedesktop.org bug 8776). The NVIDIA Linux X driver will key off the X
server ABI version to determine if the X server in use has this bug (X
servers with ABI 1.1 or later do not).
Since some X servers may have an earlier ABI but have a patch to fix the
bug, the "EnableACPIHotkeys" option can be specified to override the
NVIDIA X driver's default decision to enable or disable ACPI display
change hotkey events.
When running on a mobile system, search for "ACPI display change hotkey
events" in your X log to see the NVIDIA X driver's decision.
Default: the NVIDIA X driver will decide whether to enable ACPI display
change hotkey events based on the X server ABI.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix C. Display Device Names
______________________________________________________________________________
A "display device" refers to some piece of hardware capable of displaying an
image. There are three categories of display devices: analog displays (i.e.,
CRTs), digital displays (i.e., digital flat panels (DFPs)), and televisions.
Note that analog flat panels are considered the same as analog CRTs by the
NVIDIA Linux driver.
A "display device name" is a string description that uniquely identifies a
display device; it follows the format "-", for example: "CRT-0",
"CRT-1", "DFP-0", or "TV-0". Note that the number indicates how the display
device connector is wired on the graphics card, and has nothing to do with how
many of that kind of display device are present. This means, for example, that
you may have a "CRT-1", even if you do not have a "CRT-0". To determine which
display devices are currently connected, you may check your X log file for a
line similar to the following:
(II) NVIDIA(0): Connected display device(s): CRT-0, DFP-0
Display device names can be used in the MetaMode, HorizSync, and VertRefresh X
config options to indicate which display device a setting should be applied
to. For example:
Option "MetaModes" "CRT-0: 1600x1200, DFP-0: 1024x768"
Option "HorizSync" "CRT-0: 50-110; DFP-0: 40-70"
Option "VertRefresh" "CRT-0: 60-120; DFP-0: 60"
Specifying the display device name in these options is not required; if
display device names are not specified, then the driver attempts to infer
which display device a setting applies to. In the case of MetaModes, for
example, the first mode listed is applied to the "first" display device, and
the second mode listed is applied to the "second" display device.
Unfortunately, it is often unclear which display device is the "first" or
"second". That is why specifying the display device name is preferable.
When specifying display device names, you may also omit the number part of the
name, though this is only useful if you only have one of that type of display
device. For example, if you have one CRT and one DFP connected, you may
reference them in the MetaMode string as follows:
Option "MetaModes" "CRT: 1600x1200, DFP: 1024x768"
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix D. GLX Support
______________________________________________________________________________
This release supports GLX 1.4.
Additionally, the following GLX extensions are supported on appropriate GPUs:
o GLX_EXT_visual_info
o GLX_EXT_visual_rating
o GLX_SGIX_fbconfig
o GLX_SGIX_pbuffer
o GLX_ARB_get_proc_address
o GLX_SGI_video_sync
o GLX_SGI_swap_control
o GLX_ARB_multisample
o GLX_NV_float_buffer
o GLX_ARB_fbconfig_float
o GLX_NV_swap_group
o GLX_NV_video_out
o GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap
For a description of these extensions, see the OpenGL extension registry at
http://www.opengl.org/registry/
Some of the above extensions exist as part of core GLX 1.4 functionality,
however, they are also exported as extensions for backwards compatibility.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix E. Dots Per Inch
______________________________________________________________________________
DPI (Dots Per Inch), also known as PPI (Pixels Per Inch), is a property of an
X screen that describes the physical size of pixels. Some X applications, such
as xterm, can use the DPI of an X screen to determine how large (in pixels) to
draw an object in order for that object to be displayed at the desired
physical size on the display device.
The DPI of an X screen is computed by dividing the size of the X screen in
pixels by the size of the X screen in inches:
DPI = SizeInPixels / SizeInInches
Since the X screen stores its physical size in millimeters rather than inches
(1 inch = 25.4 millimeters):
DPI = (SizeInPixels * 25.4) / SizeInMillimeters
The NVIDIA X driver reports the size of the X screen in pixels and in
millimeters. On X.Org 6.9 or newer, when the XRandR extension resizes the X
screen in pixels, the NVIDIA X driver computes a new size in millimeters for
the X screen, to maintain a constant DPI (see the "Physical Size" column of
the `xrandr -q` output as an example). This is done because a changing DPI can
cause interaction problems for some applications. To disable this behavior,
and instead keep the same millimeter size for the X screen (and therefore have
a changing DPI), set the ConstantDPI option to FALSE (see Appendix B for
details).
You can query the DPI of your X screen by running:
% xdpyinfo | grep -B1 dot
which should generate output like this:
dimensions: 1280x1024 pixels (382x302 millimeters)
resolution: 85x86 dots per inch
The NVIDIA X driver performs several steps during X screen initialization to
determine the DPI of each X screen:
o If the display device provides an EDID, and the EDID contains information
about the physical size of the display device, that is used to compute
the DPI, along with the size in pixels of the first mode to be used on
the display device. If multiple display devices are used by this X
screen, then the NVIDIA X screen will choose which display device to use.
You can override this with the "UseEdidDpi" X configuration option: you
can specify a particular display device to use; e.g.:
Option "UseEdidDpi" "DFP-1"
or disable EDID-computed DPI by setting this option to false:
Option "UseEdidDpi" "FALSE"
EDID-based DPI computation is enabled by default when an EDID is
available.
o If the "-dpi" commandline option to the X server is specified, that is
used to set the DPI (see `X -h` for details). This will override the
"UseEdidDpi" option.
o If the "DPI" X configuration option is specified (see Appendix B for
details), that will be used to set the DPI. This will override the
"UseEdidDpi" option.
o If none of the above are available, then the "DisplaySize" X config file
Monitor section information will be used to determine the DPI, if
provided; see the xorg.conf or XF86Config man pages for details.
o If none of the above are available, the DPI defaults to 75x75.
You can find how the NVIDIA X driver determined the DPI by looking in your X
log file. There will be a line that looks something like the following:
(--) NVIDIA(0): DPI set to (101, 101); computed from "UseEdidDpi" X config
option
Note that the physical size of the X screen, as reported through `xdpyinfo` is
computed based on the DPI and the size of the X screen in pixels.
The DPI of an X screen can be confusing when TwinView is enabled: with
TwinView, multiple display devices (possibly with different DPIs) display
portions of the same X screen, yet DPI can only be advertised from the X
server to the X application with X screen granularity. Solutions for this
include:
o Use separate X screens, rather than TwinView; see Chapter 15 for details.
o Experiment with different DPI settings to find a DPI that is suitable for
both display devices.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix F. i2c Bus Support
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA Linux kernel module now includes i2c (also called I-squared-c,
Inter-IC Communications, or IIC) functionality that allows the NVIDIA Linux
kernel module to export i2c ports found on board NVIDIA cards to the Linux
kernel. This allows i2c devices on-board the NVIDIA graphics card, as well as
devices connected to the VGA and/or DVI ports, to be accessed from kernel
modules or userspace programs in a manner consistent with other i2c ports
exported by the Linux kernel through the i2c framework.
You must have i2c support compiled into the kernel, or as a module, and X must
be running. The i2c framework is available for both 2.4 and 2.6 series
kernels. Linux kernel documentation covers the kernel and userspace /dev APIs,
which you must use to access NVIDIA i2c ports.
NVIDIA has noted that in some distibutions, i2c support is enabled. However,
the Linux kernel module i2c-core.o (2.4) or i2c-core.ko (2.6), which provides
the export infrastructure, was not shipped. In this case, you will need to
build the i2c support module. For directions on how to build and install your
kernel's i2c support, refer to your distribution's documentation for
configuring, building, and installing the kernel and associated modules.
For further information regarding the Linux kernel i2c framework, refer to the
documentation for your kernel, located at .../Documentation/i2c/ within the
kernel source tree.
The following functionality is currently supported:
I2C_FUNC_I2C
I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_QUICK
I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_BYTE
I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_BYTE_DATA
I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_WORD_DATA
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix G. XvMC Support
______________________________________________________________________________
This release includes support for the XVideo Motion Compensation (XvMC)
version 1.0 API on GeForce 5 series, GeForce 6 series and GeForce 7 series
addin cards, as well as motherboard chipsets with integrated graphics that
have PureVideo support. There is a static library, "libXvMCNVIDIA.a", and a
dynamic one, "libXvMCNVIDIA_dynamic.so", which is suitable for dlopening.
XvMC's "IDCT" and "motion-compensation" levels of acceleration, AI44 and IA44
subpictures, and 4:2:0 Surfaces up to 2032x2032 are supported.
libXvMCNVIDIA observes the XVMC_DEBUG environment variable and will provide
some debug output to stderr when set to an appropriate integer value. '0'
disables debug output. '1' enables debug output for failure conditions. '2' or
higher enables output of warning messages.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix H. Tips for New Linux Users
______________________________________________________________________________
This installation guide assumes that the user has at least a basic
understanding of Linux techniques and terminology. In this section we provide
tips that the new user may find helpful. While the these tips are meant to
clarify and assist users in installing and configuring the NVIDIA Linux
Driver, it is by no means a tutorial on the use or administration of the Linux
operating system. Unlike many desktop operating systems, it is relatively easy
to cause irreparable damage to your Linux system. If you are unfamiliar with
the use of Linux, we strongly recommend that you seek a tutorial through your
distributor before proceeding.
H1. THE COMMAND PROMPT
While newer releases of Linux bring new desktop interfaces to the user, much
of the work in Linux takes place at the command prompt. If you are familiar
with the Windows operating system, the Linux command prompt is analogous to
the Windows command prompt, although the syntax and use varies somewhat. All
of the commands in this section are performed at the command prompt. Some
systems are configured to boot into console mode, in which case the user is
presented with a prompt at login. Other systems are configured to start the X
window system, in which case the user must open a terminal or console window
in order to get a command prompt. This can usually be done by searching the
desktop menus for a terminal or console program. While it is customizable, the
basic prompt usually consists of a short string of information, one of the
characters '#', '$', or '%', and a cursor (possibly flashing) that indicates
where the user's input will be displayed.
H2. NAVIGATING THE DIRECTORY STRUCTURE
Linux has a hierarchical directory structure. From anywhere in the directory
structure, the 'ls' command will list the contents of that directory. The
'file' command will print the type of files in a directory. For example,
% file filename
will print the type of the file 'filename'. Changing directories is done with
the 'cd' command.
% cd dirname
will change the current directory to 'dirname'. From anywhere in the directory
structure, the command 'pwd' will print the name of the current directory.
There are two special directories, '.' and '..', which refer to the current
directory and the next directory up the hierarchy, respectively. For any
commands that require a file name or directory name as an argument, you may
specify the absolute or the relative paths to those elements. An absolute path
begins with the "/" character, referring to the top or root of the directory
structure. A relative path begins with a directory in the current working
directory. The relative path may begin with '.' or '..'. Elements of a path
are separated with the "/" character. As an example, if the current directory
is '/home/jesse' and the user wants to change to the '/usr/local' directory,
he can use either of the following commands to do so:
% cd /usr/local
or
% cd ../../usr/local
H3. FILE PERMISSIONS AND OWNERSHIP
All files and directories have permissions and ownership associated with them.
This is useful for preventing non-administrative users from accidentally (or
maliciously) corrupting the system. The permissions and ownership for a file
or directory can be determined by passing the -l option to the 'ls' command.
For example:
% ls -l
drwxr-xr-x 2 jesse users 4096 Feb 8 09:32 bin
drwxrwxrwx 10 jesse users 4096 Feb 10 12:04 pub
-rw-r--r-- 1 jesse users 45 Feb 4 03:55 testfile
-rwx------ 1 jesse users 93 Feb 5 06:20 myprogram
-rw-rw-rw- 1 jesse users 112 Feb 5 06:20 README
%
The first character column in the first output field states the file type,
where 'd' is a directory and '-' is a regular file. The next nine columns
specify the permissions (see paragraph below) of the element. The second field
indicates the number of files associated with the element, the third field
indicates the owner, the fourth field indicates the group that the file is
associated with, the fifth field indicates the size of the element in bytes,
the sixth, seventh and eighth fields indicate the time at which the file was
last modified and the ninth field is the name of the element.
As stated, the last nine columns in the first field indicate the permissions
of the element. These columns are grouped into threes, the first grouping
indicating the permissions for the owner of the element ('jesse' in this
case), the second grouping indicating the permissions for the group associated
with the element, and the third grouping indicating the permissions associated
with the rest of the world. The 'r', 'w', and 'x' indicate read, write and
execute permissions, respectively, for each of these associations. For
example, user 'jesse' has read and write permissions for 'testfile', users in
the group 'users' have read permission only, and the rest of the world also
has read permissions only. However, for the file 'myprogram', user 'jesse' has
read, write and execute permissions (suggesting that 'myprogram' is a program
that can be executed), while the group 'users' and the rest of the world have
no permissions (suggesting that the owner doesn't want anyone else to run his
program). The permissions, ownership and group associated with an element can
be changed with the commands 'chmod', 'chown' and 'chgrp', respectively. If a
user with the appropriate permissions wanted to change the user/group
ownership of 'README' from jesse/users to joe/admin, he would do the
following:
# chown joe README
# chgrp admin README
The syntax for chmod is slightly more complicated and has several variations.
The most concise way of setting the permissions for a single element uses a
triplet of numbers, one for each of user, group and world. The value for each
number in the triplet corresponds to a combination of read, write and execute
permissions. Execute only is represented as 1, write only is represented as 2,
and read only is represented as 4. Combinations of these permissions are
represented as sums of the individual permissions. Read and execute is
represented as 5, where as read, write and execute is represented as 7. No
permissions is represented as 0. Thus, to give the owner read, write and
execute permissions, the group read and execute permissions and the world no
permissions, a user would do as follows:
% chmod 750 myprogram
H4. THE SHELL
The shell provides an interface between the user and the operating system. It
is the job of the shell to interpret the input that the user gives at the
command prompt and call upon the system to do something in response. There are
several different shells available, each with somewhat different syntax and
capabilities. The two most common flavors of shells used on Linux stem from
the Bourne shell ('sh') and the C-shell ('csh') Different users have
preferences and biases towards one shell or the other, and some certainly make
it easier (or at least more intuitive) to do some things than others. You can
determine your current shell by printing the value of the 'SHELL' environment
variable from the command prompt with
% echo $SHELL
You can start a new shell simply by entering the name of the shell from the
command prompt:
% csh
or
% sh
and you can run a program from within a specific shell by preceding the name
of the executable with the name of the shell in which it will be run:
% sh myprogram
The user's default shell at login is determined by whoever set up his account.
While there are many syntactic differences between shells, perhaps the one
that is encountered most frequently is the way in which environment variables
are set.
H5. SETTING ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
Every session has associated with it environment variables, which consist of
name/value pairs and control the way in which the shell and programs run from
the shell behave. An example of an environment variable is the 'PATH'
variable, which tells the shell which directories to search when trying to
locate an executable file that the user has entered at the command line. If
you are certain that a command exists, but the shell complains that it cannot
be found when you try to execute it, there is likely a problem with the 'PATH'
variable. Environment variables are set differently depending on the shell
being used. For the Bourne shell ('sh'), it is done as:
% export MYVARIABLE="avalue"
for the C-shell, it is done as:
% setenv MYVARIABLE "avalue"
In both cases the quotation marks are only necessary if the value contains
spaces. The 'echo' command can be used to examine the value of an environment
variable:
% echo $MYVARIABLE
Commands to set environment variables can also include references to other
environment variables (prepended with the "$" character), including
themselves. In order to add the path '/usr/local/bin' to the beginning of the
search path, and the current directory '.' to the end of the search path, a
user would enter
% export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH:.
in the Bourne shell, and
% setenv PATH /usr/local/bin:${PATH}:.
in C-shell. Note the curly braces are required to protect the variable name in
C-shell.
H6. EDITING TEXT FILES
There are several text editors available for the Linux operating system. Some
of these editors require the X window system, while others are designed to
operate in a console or terminal. It is generally a good thing to be competent
with a terminal-based text editor, as there are times when the files necessary
for X to run are the ones that must be edited. Three popular editors are 'vi',
'pico' and 'emacs', each of which can be started from the command line,
optionally supplying the name of a file to be edited. 'vi' is arguably the
most ubiquitous as well as the least intuitive of the three. 'pico' is
relatively straightforward for a new user, though not as often installed on
systems. If you don't have 'pico', you may have a similar editor called
'nano'. 'emacs' is highly extensible and fairly widely available, but can be
somewhat unwieldy in a non-X environment. The newer versions each come with
online help, and offline help can be found in the manual and info pages for
each (see the section on Linux Manual and Info pages). Many programs use the
'EDITOR' environment variable to determine which text editor to start when
editing is required.
H7. ROOT USER
Upon installation, almost all distributions set up the default administrative
user with the username 'root'. There are many things on the system that only
'root' (or a similarly privileged user) can do, one of which is installing the
NVIDIA Linux Driver. WE MUST EMPHASIZE THAT ASSUMING THE IDENTITY OF 'root' IS
INHERENTLY RISKY AND AS 'root' IT IS RELATIVELY EASY TO CORRUPT YOUR SYSTEM OR
OTHERWISE RENDER IT UNUSABLE. There are three ways to become 'root'. You may
log in as 'root' as you would any other user, you may use the switch user
command ('su') at the command prompt, or, on some systems, use the 'sudo'
utility, which allows users to run programs as 'root' while keeping a log of
their actions. This last method is useful in case a user inadvertently causes
damage to the system and cannot remember what he has done (or prefers not to
admit what he has done). It is generally a good practice to remain 'root' only
as long as is necessary to accomplish the task requiring 'root' privileges
(another useful feature of the 'sudo' utility).
H8. BOOTING TO A DIFFERENT RUNLEVEL
Runlevels in Linux dictate which services are started and stopped
automatically when the system boots or shuts down. The runlevels typically
range from 0 to 6, with runlevel 5 typically starting the X window system as
part of the services (runlevel 0 is actually a system halt, and 6 is a system
reboot). It is good practice to install the NVIDIA Linux Driver while X is not
running, and it is a good idea to prevent X from starting on reboot in case
there are problems with the installation (otherwise you may find yourself with
a broken system that automatically tries to start X, but then hangs during the
startup, preventing you from doing the repairs necessary to fix X). Depending
on your network setup, runlevels 1, 2 or 3 should be sufficient for installing
the Driver. Level 3 typically includes networking services, so if utilities
used by the system during installation depend on a remote filesystem, Levels 1
and 2 will be insufficient. If your system typically boots to a console with a
command prompt, you should not need to change anything. If your system
typically boots to the X window system with a graphical login and desktop, you
must both exit X and change your default runlevel.
On most distributions, the default runlevel is stored in the file
'/etc/inittab', although you may have to consult the guide for your own
distribution. The line that indicates the default runlevel appears as
id:n:initdefault:
or similar, where "n" indicates the number of the runlevel. '/etc/inittab'
must be edited as root. Please read the sections on editing files and root
user if you are unfamiliar with this concept. Also, it is recommended that you
create a copy of the file prior to editing it, particularly if you are new to
Linux text editors, in case you accidentally corrupt the file:
# cp /etc/inittab /etc/inittab.original
The line should be edited such that an appropriate runlevel is the default (1,
2, or 3 on most systems):
id:3:initdefault:
After saving the changes, exit X. After the Driver installation is complete,
you may revert the default runlevel to its original state, either by editing
the '/etc/inittab' again or by moving your backup copy back to its original
name.
Different distributions provide different ways to exit X. On many systems, the
'init' utility will change the current runlevel. This can be used to change to
a runlevel in which X is not running.
# init 3
There are other methods by which to exit X. Please consult your distribution.
H9. LINUX MANUAL AND INFO PAGES
System manual or info pages are usually installed during installation. These
pages are typically up-to-date and generally contain a comprehensive listing
of the use of programs and utilities on the system. Also, many programs
include the --help option, which usually prints a list of common options for
that program. To view the manual page for a command, enter
% man commandname
at the command prompt, where commandname refers to the command in which you
are interested. Similarly, entering
% info commandname
will bring up the info page for the command. Depending on the application, one
or the other may be more up-to-date. The interface for the info system is
interactive and navigable. If you are unable to locate the man page for the
command you are interested in, you may need to add additional elements to your
'MANPATH' environment variable. See the section on environment variables.